Zero Degrees Vongola
by KumikoKunagisa
Summary: Tsuna was abandoned and killed by his own guardians during a battle. 1 year later, when the guardians visited Japan to remember him, they met a mysterious young man called Zero Salvo. Could he possibly be their sky? Yet something seemed terribly wrong. Zero was later revealed to be keeping a deadly secret. Another shadowy man appeared and claimed to know who killed Tsuna..however..
1. Prologue: The Beginning of the Beginning

**Hey mina-san, this is Kumiko. I have made a few changes to this chapter (really minor stuffs, generally wording of phrases). I can't really guarantee the quality of the chapters without this note. But anyways, please enjoy!**

**—Postmark: April 30th, 2013 (it has been 2 years, wow)**

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><p><strong>Prologue (<em>The Beginning of the Beginning)<em>  
><strong>

_"Nah, do you know, if that blue sky was tainted, would he still be the same sky?"_

_"If the sky disappeared, where would the six attributes call 'home'?"_

_"Haha, only when they lose the sky, they will realize what an important part of their lives did they just discard like a piece of trash."_

_"When the sky was still there, they turned away the trust of the sky, and denued the existence of the sky."_

_"These people, do they still deserve the protections from the sky?"_

_"They, do **not** deserve the sky's protections, nor do they deserve, the sky's trust."_

Four years after inheriting the Vongola family, Vongola Decimo faced a sudden attack from an unknown organization. During the battle, he was betrayed by _everyone_ from his family, including his guardians and his teacher. Decimo died after the battle, from massive blood loss resulted from numerous bullet shots directed to his from his own side. His guardians refused to bury him inside the Vongola family graveyard, instead, they sent the body back to his homeland - Japan. Vongola Decimo was nineteen years old.

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><p>The pale face, blood, only more blood. That deserted look, blood. Then the shot of a revolver.<p>

"Please..." He begged, but nobody listened, nor did they care. "Please, Gokudera-kun, mina..."

Nobody heard his desperate call. There was only sullen faces whose expressions could not be seen.

"Please..." A small trail of red trickled down from his cheek. But they resumed. Red was spilled once more.

That pale hand, losing its grip at last, collapsed down to the ground that was coloured dark red.

"NO!" Gokudera woke up in cold sweat._ Still that dream?_ He groaned. _After one year, I still couldn't get over that day._ Laughing at himself drily, Gokudera got up from his bed and started getting dressed. _There's still a lot of work to do today, _he told himself with a short bitter laugh. _Suffer the damn consequence!_

He slid out of his room. It was only six in the morning, nobody else was awake. If it was one year earlier, he had one place to go where he can escape this boredom: the office of Vongola Decimo. There, somebody would always welcome him with a cup of hot coffee and a warm 'Good Morning". But today was not one year ago. That room was already sealed, probably filled with dusts. The only key to that place was destroyed eleven months ago by the Arcobaleno.

Shaking his head, Gokudera walked downstairs silently. At this time, only that odd baby would be awake. _Only after that incident did he started getting up this early._ He thought as he turned the silver handle, shivering at the contact with the extreme coldness.

"Gokudera Hayato, good morning." The usual greetings, but frigid, without the special hospitality of the sky.

"Good morning, Reborn-san." He replied calmly. "Anything important today?"

Dead silence. This was quite unusual. The reply to his question was usually 'No' or 'Maybe', but never silence like this. Eventually, the answer came. But the voice was deep, filled with sadness, atypical of the Arcobaleno.

"Hayato, do you know what day is today?" The unexpected appellation.

"..." He remained silent for a second, "...yes." He whispered

"The plane to Japan is at noon, eleven o'clock, I will inform everybody else." Reborn quickly return to his unwelcoming tone. "There's also a clue in Japan. _The family_ might be there."

"_That_ family?" Gokudera's voice suddenly changed. It became rushy, just like the him five years ago.

"Yes, I think so." Reborn remained unruffled. "The Varia will come later. Pack up, please. I think you know what to bring." He rose his eyebrows.

"Indeed, I think I do." Gokudera said as he exited the room swiftly, as if trying to escape.

When Gokudera's steps were not heard anymore, Reborn took Leon off his hat. Nobody had ever seen him using Leon in the past one year, he bought himself another revolver. Patting Leon slowly, Reborn muttered to himself.

"One year already, my dumb student. That was quickly. How are you doing?"

Then quickly he stopped talking. Laughing at himself sharply, Reborn put Leon back onto his head as quick as possible.

"How stupid of me," He said slowly. "You are already dead, how can you feel anything?"

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><p>The airplane arrived half an hour early, but the guardians arrived even earlier. Lambo and Chrome were called to remain at the Vongola Headquarters if anything happened along with Nono. The head of CEDEF Sawada Iemitsu was also called to remain at the Vongola base. Dragging their luggages in silence, the guardians boarded the plane heading towards Tokyo, Japan. There, they would go on a private plane and head towards Namimori. Reborn ordered normal plane tickets for the reason of 'getting back into the normal society quicker after soaking inside that despicable dark world'. After a short pause, Reborn added grimly: "Or do you want him to see you guys soaked with the blood of darkness, of sins?"<p>

Reborn's words were always straight to the point, so the guardians listened and followed. When they arrived at Tokyo half a day later, they immediately boarded a small plane to Namimori and arrived at the town right before dawn.

Their former friends at Namimori were not informed about the incident one year ago, meaning neither Sawada Nana, Kyouko, nor Haru know about what happened. Hence, it would be easy for the guardians to find a place to live without being disturbed. But a secret cannot remain a secret forever, it will be just a matter of time that they would find out.

"Ahwo..." Yamamoto yawned as he jumped off the plane. He said a short thank you to the pilot and dragged down his luggage. "So tired after the ride, nearly twenty hours~" He grinned.

"Nope, baseball idiot." Gokudera said slowly with a wink. "It's only you who's so tired." But then the blaring snores of Sasagawa Ryohei behind him made him blush. "Hey, you, lawn head!" He shouted at Sasagawa, "Freaking wake up! We are here, man!"

"No!" Sasagawa suddenly jumped up from his seat. "No to the _extreme_! I don't want to see Kyouko like this! I don't wanna go back home!"

All of the guardians' jaw dropped open, "Huh...Our dear guardian of sun is acting like Lambo?" But they all stopped laughing when they heard Ryohei's next deafening shout.

"I don't want to answer Kyouko's questions about the whereabouts of Sawada!" He shouted without thinking as he bent his knees and covered his head with his two hands.

"Ah..." Yamamoto sighed loudly. Winking away that sad look, he waved goodbye at the rest of the guardians. "I have to go see my father now! So, we meet at the Center Hotel at twelve'o clock noon tomorrow, _little_ baby?"

"Yes, Yamamoto, you got it right." Reborn replied.

"Let's meet tomorrow, then. Do **not** be late." Gokudera announced. "We will be discussing _that_ issue, so..."

"None of us will be late." Hibari finished the sentence for Gokudera as he headed towards the opposite direction of Yamamoto.

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><p>"So we still don't know the name nor the exact whereabouts of that family, but we are sure that it's in Japan somewhere?" Rokudo Mukuro concluded the whole meeting in one sentence. "How dare they come to Japan! After..."<p>

"Well, we can't blame them," Gokudera said with a weak smile. "After all, it's us who..."

"Killed Tsuna." Yamamoto finished the sentence in the suddenly grim atmosphere.

"Anyways." Reborn gave a sudden change of subject. "We have some other things to discuss. There's a large family called the Salvo that want to be allies with us. They sent us the invitation two weeks ago, but I forgot about it. I think they are getting quite anxious. The information is in that pile of paper in front of you right now. What do you-!"

Reborn's voice was cut off by a ear-piercing 'BANG' from downstairs. That was where the guards were located. Quickly taking out their guns, the guardians and Reborn headed downstairs. They didn't want to be interrupted by an intruder during such an important meeting.

But when the arrived, their bodies froze on the spot.

_How strong is this damn intruder?_ That sentence was in everyone's mind.

In the fog of dirt in front of them, they saw a figure. His body was covered in black cloak. Even his head was covered with a hood, making it impossible for the guardians to see his face. The way he holds the gun brought a sense of familiarity to the guardians.

_Tsuna_? Reborn recognised the way the person was holding the gun: it was definitely the 'Reborn' Style. _Dino_?

When the fog finally dissolved, they saw the tall man. After two seconds of awkward silence, the young man spoke in an emotionless tone, so cold that the guardians and Reborn immediately dismissed 'Tsuna' from the possible identities of the man.

Pointing his gun at the guardians, the young man spat out a sentence, loud and clear.

"Hey, Vongola." He said coldly. "Do you want to be our ally or not, I am getting agitated.


	2. The New Introduction

**Hey mina-san, this is Kumiko. I have made a few changes to this chapter (really minor stuffs, generally wording of phrases). I can't really guarantee the quality of the chapters without this note. But anyways, please enjoy!**

**—Postmark: April 30th, 2013 **

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><p><strong>The New Introduction<strong>

"Hey Vongola," The young man in the hood whispered, pointing a gun at the Vongola Guardians. "Do you want to be our ally or not, I am getting **terribly **angitated."

There was an awkward silence. The young man seemed to become impatient after a mere five seconds. Firing a bullet inyo the ground, he awoke the shocked guardians.

"Uh..." Yamamoto was a little nervous. Looking at the guards who were lying motionless on the ground with non visible physical injuries, his body shivered a little. _Slash through the nerves point blank, oh my freaking god._ He thought. _Even stronger than...stronger than...than Tsuna!_ "Uh huh...Who are you, Mr. Hooded-Guy?"

The young man was definitely 'amused' by the name Yamamoto just gave him. Sighing, he put down his gun. Without taking off his hood, he said in a somewhat nostalgic but strangely emotionless voice. "Zero Salvo."

"Boss of the Salvo Assassination Committee." Reborn stated with a raised eyebrow.

"No, the boss of the family is _not_ me." Zero Salvo said as he walked towards the guardians in a slow tempo. "I am just...just a normal family member with _no_ honour."

"But how can a 'normal family member with no honour' be on the list of the top ten people whom Vongola wants to invite? And how can such a young man be the best assassin for one whole year inside the Salvo family which live on assassination projects?" Reborn said with an interesting smile. But inside his heart, he took notice of something he just said. One year? Exactly one year? Wasn't that when the incident happened?

"You got something wrong, the Sun Arcobaleno." Zero interrupted. "First of all, I have been the Salvo's top assassin for more than three years, your information is definitely wrong; Secondly, I actually do not have any honour, at least not any after I have lost all my hope." After finishing that sentence, a mysterious coldness flashed through his face. But thanks to the hood, nobody saw it.

"Huh? No honour at all?" That question poped out in every guardians' mind. At the same time, they were shocked by the young man's experience at the Salvo family. How old could he be three or four years ago? At most sixteen or seventeen! And he's been an assassin since **then**?

Zero did not reply. He continued to walk towards the guardians. When he was in front of Reborn, he stopped. Hibari's eyebrows raised unonicebaly. He felt a sense of familiarity beneath the cloak. Not a familiarity of voice, but a familiarity of coldness. He had experience this kind of emotionless attitude before, but _when_? **When**!

"The sun Arcobaleno: Reborn." Zero said formally, but his voice remained monotonous, as if he didn't have any emotions inside him. "I, Zero V. Salvo, hereby passes on the request of the boss of the Salvo Assassination Committee -Francesco M. L. Salvo - to be ally with the Mafia Vongola Family of Palermo. Reborn, as the current leader of the Vongola Family, do you choose to accept this request?"

"How do you know I am the leader of the Vongola Family right now?" Reborn suddenly said with suspicion. After that incident, the guardians' found Tsuna's will inside a small box inside his office. It said something about letting Reborn take control of Vongola before the eleventh was chosen. But this was not told to anyone other than the seven guardians, Reborn, and Sawada Iemitsu. How can Zero Salvo, somebody who they just met, knows about that?

"That is out of your range of knowledge." Zero said coldly.

"Okay, then. I will turn down the request of your boss, Zero Salvo." Reborn said with a tricking smile. "Until you tell me how did you get that information!" His tone turned dangerousat the end.

"If that's your answer." Zero bowed slightly. Then he turned walked briskly out of their sight. He was no where to be seen within 2 seconds. Non of the guardians felt any movement of flames. But none of them noticed that Hibari Kyouya's body went numb while his eyes were filled with surprise and fear. "Then I will return to my family base without causing any further interruption to your _'extremely_ important meeting'." Zero's sarcastic voice reached them from the distance.

"And how did you learn about that?" This time, Rokudo Mukuro asked. There was no anger evident in his voice, only a tone showing his interest towards this cold young man called Zero Salvo.

A shadow appeared at the outside gate, 300m way from the guardians "That is out of your range of knowledge." The same answer. Before the sentence could end and Zero could disappear outside this place, he felt something behind his head.

"Join us, Zero V. Salvo." A emotionless voice that can compete with Zero's. "Join our family."

"What?" Zero said slowly as he turned his head towards the person who was holding a revolver against his head. "What if I choose not to?"

"Then I will blow open your head." Hibari replied with his signature excitement.

Shaking his head slowly, Zero sighed. "Do I have **a** choice?"

"No." A very cool answer to this very cool question.

"Well, I think I do." Without an extra movement, Zero turned his back at a speed no human can see clearly and slashed Hibari's neck before anyone could even react. When he was hit, Hibari's eyes grew wide open. But it was shut the next second, when his body went numb and all his nerves were forced to shut down. His body collapsed, and Zero caught him right on the spot.

"Sleep for a while, Vongola Decimo's Cloud Guardian-dono." Zero muttered beside Hibari's ear.

"Hey, you!" Gokudera was clearly surprised at Zero's sudden actions. "Hibari was just asking you a question in his own way! How can you just slash on his neck like that, you could have killed him!" He protested loudly. Sasagawa nodded in agreement,

"But I did not," Zero said calmly as he placed Hibari's body gently on to the ground. "I just made him sleep for a while, a very simple task."

"Heading straight for those nerve, right?" Reborn suddenly said. "Not the thin veins on the neck. You didn't mean to attack him, did you, Zero?"

"Of course not." Zero walked towards the door in a slowly tempo. "He wasn't going to kill me, but I am not sure about the choice of hurting me. So that was the best solution."

Coughing slightly, Zero added one more sentence before leaving the room at last. "So Vongola's Leader, you turned down our request to be your ally. Is that your final decision, because I am leaving right now. Once my right feet steps out of this room, there's no coming back."

"Ah, to be the Salvo's ally..." Reborn thought about it for a moment. He for sure wanted to be the Salvo's ally, but he still hoped to fish more information out of Zero V. Salvo. Yet that seemed impossible at the moments. Looking back at Zero's stern face, Reborn sighed. If he ask one more question, he might totally screw up his only chance to befriend the greatest assassination organization on Earth. "Alright then, I agree."

No trace of emotion went across Zero's face. But that didn't matter at all since nobody could see even his face. "Great. So Sun Arcobaleno Reborn, my boss Francesco will come to the Vongola Japan Headquarters for the signing of documents at noon. Will that work for you?"

Without thinking, all of the guardians replied in unison: "NO!"

"Why?" Even Zero's questioning voice had no sentiment.

"That is out of your range of knowledge." Yamamoto mocked Zero with a tricking smile. For some reason, he enjoyed teasing this unfeeling assassin. The fun felt nostalgic.

"Ah, I see." Zero said in an interesting tone after five seconds of silence, but still quite cold and definitely emotionless. "Going to see somebody you guys regretted killing? Fine, good idea. You guys _should_ regret it."

"How did you know that?" Rokudo Mukuro suddenly freaked out It appeared as if this man was dragging out all those secrets they tried so hard to bury deep their hearts, those secrets that they were dead afraid to share.

"Mind reading, huh?" Reborn said with a short bitter laugh. "And it's some really good mind reading. If there's a standard exam on it, I bet you can score 100%." But deep down, Reborn was curious. There's only four people on Earth who can master mind reading during this era of time, no, only three now, one of them was already killed. How come there's another one, just jumping out like that? "Who taught you that?"

"That's out of your area of knowledge." Zero ignored Reborn as he headed out of the room one more time. "I will come at noon tomorrow and visit Vongola Decimo's grave with you guys since he had been my idol since I was young. Francesco, my boss and brother, will come three hours later. No more discussions. Bye." Abruptly, Zero disappeared.

"He was trying to end the conversation as soon as possible." Yamamoto observed. "But he's pretty bad at it, that Zero. Little baby," Then he turned towards the pondering Reborn, "Can you read his mind?"

"No, I can't." Reborn said with a grin. "He sealed his brain away from the outside world. He has some secrets to bury, too."

While the guardians headed back into the meeting room (huh, ignoring Kyouya-san's passed out body?), Sasagawa turned and looked at the place where Zero disappeared. "I wonder what's the face under that hood like..." He murmured to himself.

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><p>Hibari flushed his eyelids, he didn't know what happened after he was hit on the neck. He could feel that he was inside the Vongola Hospitalization Room right now. This base was designed by 'that person' three years earlier. It was also underground, but the whole layout was completely different from the one they lived in from the future battle. It was so familiar that it brought a sour feeling towards his eyes. But he's Hibari after all, Hibari Kyouya never cries.<p>

Shaking his own head, Hibari tried to remember how he ended up here. There was a guy called Zero Salvo, he brought a request, then he, Hibari, saw something, what was it again? It was something extremely important, something important enough to make Hibari act out of his disciplines and approach a complete stranger like that. _What was it?_

And he remembered. His eyes widened in surprise, making him nearly fall off his bed.

Cursing himself, Hibari muttered under his breath.

"Those eyes...Zero V. Salvo's eyes..."

_"They are the same as __**Sawada Tsunayoshi's**__!"_

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><p>The next day approached quickly. After a short argument with others about what to bring with him during the visit to...to...to <em>that<em> place, Gokudera headed outside his room in the Vongola Base. While he locked his door, he took notice of the shut door next to his room. The name card on the door was so filled with dusts Gokudera failed to make out the letters. Tilting his head slightly, he tried to remember which person owned this room. But since he hadn't been in this base for two years, he couldn't remember a trace. Out of curiosity, he headed for the door.

Putting his bag of things onto the ground, Gokudera tried to turn the orange handle of the door, but it was impossible. Knocking on the door slightly, he expected somebody to answer, but nobody did. Finally, whispering a word of sorry, he kicked open the door with great force, totally ignoring the name card that he forgot to look at. _There was something important inside,_ that was the only thing inside his head, _and it is calling me._

The door quickly swung open. Picking up his bag, Gokudera Hayato stepped inside. As dusts cleared, he focused his gaze to observe the surroundings. Then his body froze on the spot.

It was a perfect replica of the Vongola Decimo's office in Palermo's Vongola Headquarters.

The same wooden table, the same plain bed, the same cupboard, and the same window, except the scenery outside was constructed of LED screens. Couldn't help himself, Gokudera quickly ran to the table and picked up the first piece of paper that his finger touched. Blowing off the dusts gently, he recognized the familiar handwriting which belongs to _him_, **him**, his _**Jyuudaime**_...

His finger went through the lines. The file was in French, it looked like a letter. Gokudera couldn't read French perfectly, but he could make out a few words. His eyebrows raised as he finished the letter chunk by chunk, muttering out the words.

"Je suis désolé...mais c'est inévitable...une guerre après quinze jours...bien...je vous remercie..."

Looking at the date, Gokudera's body went numb. It was exactly two weeks before the incident, the incident that ended the letter writer's life.

Looking back at the letter again, Gokudera noticed something expecially important.

"Jyuudaime knew there was going to be a battle?" He exclaimed under his breathe. "I thought it was a surprise attack! That was why...why we did that to Jyuudaime..."

"Why in the world didn't Jyuudaime tell us!"

_You were alive, do something!_


	3. Outside the Dream, Inside the Dream

**Hello, this is Kumiko. I, again, have made changes to this chapter. Please enjoy the revised version!**

**— Postmarked: April 30th, 2013**

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><p><strong>Outside the Dream, Inside the Dream<strong>

"I do understand that you guys dislike me," Zero Salvo said as he leaned back onto the door. "But you have no choice other than letting me follow."

"How can we dislike you?" Mukuro said in surprise. Actually, they discussed a little bit about this cold young man yesterday afternoon, none of them said that they disliked him, or worse, hated him. All of the guardians said that they found a sense of looniness inside the young man's movements, and strangely, a sense of familiarity.

"I am just a killing machine." Zero muttered to himself slowly, still no wave of emotions inside his voice, even though the sense of lonely was now stronger. "I was trained to kill, that was the only thing I know. I started killing before I was even born." Then his hooded head lowered, as if his gaze was focused on his hand. "My hands are soaked with the blood of those innocent victims. My existence is only for killing. Even if I disappeared one day, nobody would care."

Silence. Pure silence. Nobody spoke, they all felt some kind of an echo inside their hearts. Deep buried there somewhere, they felt exactly the same. It wasn't their true desire that they became like this. Around one and a half year ago, they were still 'pure' on some standards, at least their hands were not filled with those sinful blood of a Mafiosi. But that was their fate, right? How can you avoid your fate? But the reason their purity lasted a little longer was because of him. Now, now that he no longer exists, where would their innocences go? Hesitation, fear, designation, that was what filled their hearts when they first striked alone. Their minds cried, shouted, and begged for them to stop. But they had to continue, because he was no longer there. No longer there to shield them from all the darkness. And it was _their_ fault.

"Hey, you guys alright?" Zero said slowly. The guardians were already used to his cold tone. But strangely, through that same emotionless tone, they felt rivers of emotions hidden beneath it, like they were sealed by force, unable to get out.

"Huh?" Yamamoto shook his head slowly, trying to shake away those painful thoughts. "Yeah, we are alright." He said with a weak smile. But his guilty expression betrayed him.

Under the hood, a small movement flew across Zero's face, like surprise. Staring at the guardians for a second, he said lightly. "Well, if something already happened, you can't really change it anymore, could you?" Then he turned his back to the guardians. "Just enjoy your life right now. You guys are still alive, do not waste your time thinking about how much you guys regret the past. There's no use." Turning his head to the side, he gave a sudden change of topic. "Anyways, where is Gokudera Hayato, Vongola Decimo's Storm Guardian-dono? Where is he during our useless conversation that I don't even know how it started?"

"Yeah, talking about that," Sasagawa's eyebrows raised. "Where's the stupid octopus head, he's already late for two minutes! Doesn't he know to the extreme that where we are heading to today?"

"Hum..." Reborn mumbled. This was strange. It was Gokudera we were talking about, somebody who was so loyal to his Jyuudaime. How can he be late for...for this?

Supporting his forehead, Zero let out a short sigh. The guardians were all frozen when they saw this movement. This was...that was _his_ signature act when he was impatient! His! "Storm Guardian-dono's probably in trouble." Zero appeared gloomy, "I will go and seek him, Guardians-dono and Reborn-dono please wait here."

"Ha? The guardians-dono?" Hibari narrowed his eyes. He was quite surprised at this appellation. But Zero was already running towards the door, well, it looked more like high speed sliding in the guardians' perspectives since his whole body was covered with a black cloak.

But when Zero was just going to get outside, his movement stopped. "Storm Guardian-dono...?" They heard him whisper. "Storm Guardian-dono!" Then a loud shout, "Are you alright?" For a second, his voice wasn't emotionless any more. But it was only for a second. Quickly, it was back to the same monotone.

"What's wrong with Gokudera?" Yamamoto said as he ran towards Zero. When he stopped beside Zero, he instantly understood why even somebody with no emotion like Zero was a little shocked.

Gokudera was standing in the middle of Hallway, frozen. His hair was a total mess, the clothes were extremely untidy. His eyes did not have any shine, they were as if its owner was dead. Inside his fist, there was several pieces of crumbled paper. His bag was dropped somewhere behind him. Gokudera was just standing there, his mouth gapping, staring blankly at the front.

Zero Salvo, as a trained assassin, reacted first. He quickly ran to Gokudera. Supporting his falling body, he whispered beside Gokudera's ear. "Storm Guardian-dono, you went inside Vongola Decimo's office?"

Already knowing Zero's mind reading ability, Gokudera nodded mechanically. "Jyuudaime...he...he...chose to..." He whispered out the words. Under the hood, Zero's eyebrows twisted a little.

"New discovery?" Zero said, "I understand. But..." Then without an extra word, he gave a hit on Gokudera's neck. Before the others could react, he took out a mysterious white pill from somewhere inside his cloak and stuffed it down the passed-out Gokudera's half opened mouth. "Please forget what you just saw." He whispered to himself in a voice only he can hear. "You can't know that for now, that's not on my script."

"Hey! Zero! What are you doing!" Mukuro said as he ran to Yamamoto.

"Oh, giving Storm Guardian-dono a pill. So he can wake up and be normal in ten minutes. Then your visiting plan wouldn't be disturbed." Zero said as he carried Gokudera on his back. The guardians noticed that Zero's body sank a little. Mukuro caught trace of Zero's pale hand. It was so extremely pale that it didn't look human. And it was terribly skinny, making Mukuro wonder where did this Zero eat for the past years in his life go.

A trace of surprise flashed through Reborn's eyes. Of course Reborn knew that the white pill wasn't for the sake of their plan. When he tried to read Gokudera's mind just now, he couldn't find anything weird that caused Gokudera to be like that. It raised suspicion to Reborn about the usage of the pill. But that wasn't the most important thing right now. Looking at Zero, he nodded slightly. "Yes, let's go."

* * *

><p>The place wasn't far from the Japan Vongola Base, around forty minutes by car at most during traffic hours. It was somewhere familiar to both the guardians and <em>he<em> himself. The place wasn't chosen by the guardians, nor Reborn. Apparently, it was chosen by he himself and was written on his will. Smiling at that thought, Reborn remembered something interesting. It was actually he, Reborn, who forced him to write his first will. That was when he first came to the spot of Vongola Decimo. He told him, as the boss of the Italian Mafia, he might be killed anytime. He remembered how _dame_ he was at the time. His face was filled with panic. But he wrote the will anyway. Later, he updated his will around every six months. After several changes, the short will with merely half a page became the ten-paged essay which later became the official will of Vongola Decimo Sawada Tsunayoshi. That will was updated exactly two weeks before the incident, right inside Decimo's Japanese office.

Gokudera was already awake, he was perfectly normal. When Yamamoto asked him what happened, he just said he forgot. Yamamoto took it as he didn't want to tell them, so he just waved it away. But they didn't notice that a small smile went across Zero's face which disappeared one second later. A self blaming expression replaced it.

_I am not supposed to have any emotion._ Zero thought,_ What is happening to me? Why am I a little strange when I am beside these people?_

The common laughter filled the car along the way. The guardians acted like it was a normal trip. But Zero who remained silent the whole time was observing their conversation the whole time. He could see that they were just faking it. Reading Mukuro's mind, he knew that they didn't want him to see them like this, they wanted him to feel that they were still living a happy life.

It finally arrived.

The guardians got off the car in silence. Zero lowered his head and followed behind them in silence, he didn't want to disturb their peace. When he raised his head, a wave of surprise went across his blank eyes. But it turned back into blank quickly. He was just a little amused by what he saw.

It was noon, the sun was straight over their heads. Thanks to the black hood, Zero didn't feel the burning rays of the sun. In front of him, there was a small river and a glass like lake. Some peach trees were planted beside the river, but they looked a little new. A ground of cherry blossoms were near, but no trace of impatience went on Hibari's face, it was just pure peace. The sun left shadows of the trees on the ground. Thanks to the leaves, holes of light went through the spaces between the leaves and made some round spots, making this scene perfect. Under the largest peach tree, some flowers were planted. Zero narrowed his eyes a little and recognised a small tombstone. Putting on his lenses, he saw that the tombstone was extremely plain. Fixing the focus ring, he saw the three lines on the tomb stone.

* * *

><p><em>Sawada Tsunayoshi • Vongola<em>

_Member of the Vongola Family_

_**There's no ending in a true game of chess.**_

* * *

><p>Zero became a little confused. "<em>No ending in a true game of chess<em>...What does Vongola Decimo mean?" He muttered to himself.

The guardians totally ignored the existence of Zero at this moment. They were all walking towards that small plain tombstone along with Reborn. In unison, they all kneeled down in front of it, even the most proud of them all, Mukuro and Hibari, knelt down. Not with one knee but both knees, the highest respect. Slowly, Gokudera moved forward and put a small box in front of the tombstone.

"Good afternoon, Jyuudaime, long time...no see." Gokudera said slowly. Bitting his lips, he murmured into the air. "How are you, Jyuudaime? No, I do not deserve to ask you any questions. I do not even deserve to speak to you. But can you, can you, Jyuudaime...just wake up! Even killing me on the spot would be alright! I just want to see...see your face again!" He started weeping slowly. But then he regained calm. "Nah, anyways, Jyuudaime. Inside the box is all the letters you received in the past one year. Since the stupid woman and Sasagawa Kyouko wan;t notified about...about you know what, these are what they wrote to you. Also, your mother-dono wrote some letters, too, asking you to...to...to go home..." Then he couldn't control himself anymore and erupted into extreme crying.

"Gokudera..." Yamamoto bit his lips, but no other word came out of his mouth as he stared at the tomb stone. With a bitter smile, he started talking.

"Hey, Tsuna. I just remembered that I still have a book you lent me that I forgot to give back. It was about baseball. Actually, you bought it specially for me but decided that you wanted to read about it first so you can have some great discussions about baseball with me. I remember that you told me to become the best baseball player in Japan, and told me to leave the family if I think baseball is more worthy than my sword. But how can I do that!" Yamamoto was still smiling, but tears strolled down his cheek. "Ah, exactly one year ago right, I still cannot forget every detail of that day. Everything was so clear, I remember that I used my sword and lashed through your body like nothing, without one single second of hesitation. But you just kept smiling. You didn't even bother to attack, even if you were soaked with blood, even if your heart was-"

"Stop!" Reborn shouted, breaking the atmosphere. "Stop!" His teeth gritted. Zero noticed that Reborn was trying to control his emotions, but it was too hard right now. "Please..." He begged slowly.

Zero was surprised._ The sun arcobaleno was begging?_ He thought. _Impossible! But in this case, maybe, I must say, if that was what they did..._

"Don't bring up that sinful memory up in public again." Reborn said slowly, trying to cheat himself. "Just...stop."

"Dame-student," He said slowly as he remained unmoving. "C'est la vie, c'est ça? No matter how much I regret it, I can't change it! There's no going back into time."

"Game of chess..." Zero was still murmuring, he found that sentence familiar. He must know something about it. "Game of chess...true game of chess...no ending..."

"Ah, how can I say about the past one year?" Reborn continued on, "It was peaceful, but not peaceful in the heart. It was fun, but painful in the mind. Huh, that might be a good conclusion. How..."

While Reborn continued talking, a flash of alarm went through Zero's eyes. The normally blank eyes were suddenly filled with shines, not shines of coldness, but kindness, and peacefulness.

"Ah, I see." He murmured with an unnoticeable smile while he looked sincerely at the guardians.

"Thanks, mina-san."

"For whatever you did."

_Life will always end before you are ready._


	4. The Distance Farther than Earth to Moon

**Hello again mina-sama, this is Miko again! Thanks for all of your reviews, they were totally awesome! Please write more of them! Anyways, there are a few french phrases, but they are all quite easy, so please remain cool. Please enjoy the story! (REVISED 2.0)**

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><p><strong>Chapter Three: The Distance Farther than Earth to Moon<strong>

"Ah, I see." Zero Salvo murmured with a grin while he gazed at the guardians with a sincere look.

"Thanks, mina-san." But then his expression darkened.

"But I am sorry, I still cannot...I still cannot beli eve...and I already..I already did..." Then his voice was cut off abruptly, not by anybody else, but he himself. Along with a piercing pain, his pupil went back to blank. Slowly, his knees buckled. One second later, he finally lost his last string of consciousness and collapsed to the floor.

_What just happened to me?_ That was the last thought inside his head before he passed out.

The sound of Zero's body hitting the grass alarmed the mourning guardians. Hibari was the first to react. He got up quickly and ran towards Zero's unmoving body. His eyebrows raised as he realised that Zero was not moving. Seeing no blood, he quickly decided that Zero passed out thanks to the great heat today. But when his hand went for Zero's hand-the only part of his body that was not hidden under the cloak-his mind froze: Zero V. Salvo's hand was as cold as ice. But before he could react. something leaped to life.

The next second, he felt a short but sharp knife against his neck.

"Huh...huh?" Everyone was surprised._ How can a person react so quickly_? But when they realised that they were talking about a top class assassin since his childhood, they calmed down.

"Hu..hu..hu..." Zero was breathing hard. A drop of sweat went down his face. "Do...do not...not touch me.." He said coughing a little. "Never...ever...touch me, Hiba..Hibari Kyouya..." He whispered. He didn't even know why he said that, but it felt natural, like it was his first instinct: he hated to be touched by this particular person.

"Aho?" Hibari said with interest, waking Zero up from what-special-mode-is-he-in-right-now. "Huh?" Hibari was grinning a little. He just found another interesting herbivore. Even if this 'herbivore' might be much stronger than him.

"Sorry, Cloud Guardian-dono." Zero said quickly as he got up, patting the dirt off his cloak. "Sorry for that." With a flash, the silver knife was gone, probably hidden back under that dark cloak somewhere. Without an extra word, Zero head towards the car they came in.

"Are you leaving, Zero?" Yamamoto said smiling. "You can stay if you want!"

"No thank you, Rain Guardian-dono." Zero said as he stretched his cloak. "That would be inappropriate."

"How inappropriate?" Yamamoto was utterly confused.

"That is out of your knowledge." Zero answered with his classical answer. All the guardians grinned, but a worried look appeared in Reborn's face. _What's wrong with Zero? _Reborn thought. _What is this child trying to hide?_

"Oh, Guardians-dono and Reborn-dono." Zero added as he leaped onto the top of the high class car which took them here. "I will be back to the Vongola Base in two hours along with Francesco Salvo who is uh...the Salvo family's boss for the signing of the ally documents. I will not expect Vongola's true boss to be present since he is sleeping here right now." A twisted and confused look appeared on Zero's face as he said that sentence, but he continued. "But please, Guardians-dono and Reborn-dono, be ready, so-"

Zero didn't finish his sentence. His knee buckled a little. Realising the situation, he nodded lightly at the guardians and Reborn, then without another word, he leaped into the air. Something seemed to be shining on his pale hand. _A ring?_ Mukuro thought. After a blink of an eye, black flames shot out of Zero's hands.

_Black?_ All of the guardians were shocked. _What kind of attribute in the world is that?_

But before their suspicions were raised, the flame colour changed into purple: the colour of the cloud attribute. A disappointed look appeared on Hibari's face. _So he's not related to the herbivore after all_. He thought, bitting his lips. _The herbivore did not own cloud attribute flame waves inside his body._ But he didn't saw Reborn who was smiling at him with a mysterious huge grin.

* * *

><p>Zero landed in front of a typical French mansion one minute later. The second he landed, he collapsed onto the ground, breathing hard. As he was doing so, the front door of the mansion suddenly opened and a young man around twenty ran outside the door with a worried look on his face.<p>

"Zero! Zero! You alright?" He said in a hurry, his hand on Zero's forehead. But his hand flew off five seconds later, laughing at himself, the young man thought with a bitter smile. Of course not. He thought. How can Zero's body have temperature? After all, he is...

"Cough..." Zero coughed slightly. Narrowing his eyes a little, he recognised the figure holding his body up. "Ah, Francesco, is that you?"

"Oui, Monsieur Zero." Francesco said with that worried look still on his face. As Zero was coughing more, he became a little anxious. "Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?" He said in his native language: French.

"Ah, non, je me sense bien..." Zero quickly switched his language mode. "Mais je vais m'evanouir..." As he struggled to stand up with the help of Francesco, he thought back before the movement he fainted.

"I felt complete for a second...because..." He murmured to himself. Putting a hand above his chest, he sighed. _The seal is...is breaking..._He told himself in his mind. _It's gonna be soon..._

"Huh? Comment?" Francesco asked in French since he couldn't hear Zero's whisper properly.

"Ah, Francesco, mon frère," Zero said calmly. Besides Japanese and Italian, French was his best language. Well, maybe English, but his English kind of sucks, because of some reason..."Est-ce que tu prends 'the Script' pour moi?"

"The script!" Francesco said in surprise. Looking around checking nobody was near, he lean towards Zero's ear and whispered slowly in English. "Is it...is it the seal?"

"Yeah." Zero said bitting his lips. "The parts I sealed within .myself during _the_ process in becoming more and more unstable now. I think we shall proceed. Bien?" He asked Francesco while tilting his head slightly.

"Bien sur!" Francesco said with a huge sincere smile. "Et la conference aujourd'hui..."

"As normal." Zero said as he slid the hood off his head. It was too hot today, and since nobody was around right now..."You are the boss, I am just the Zero Salvo without any other things."

"Bon!" Francesco said as he opened the door of the mansion for Zero slowly. Under the sun, he saw Zero's face. It had been a while since he saw that face, at least three weeks. Actually, it had been already two weeks since he saw Zero. Smiling, he took one more look at that face. It was emotionless,_ because of the seal,_ he told himself. But inside the emotionless, he clearly read some sorrows. It had always been like that. Ever since...ever since 400 years ago...

Under the sudden bright sunshine, the hair of Zero reflected the orange rays perfectly, looking like the bright shiny colour of gold. But that was not true, that was not the true colour of his hair. The true colour of his hair was the exact same colour as his right eye, only the right eye.

The colour of caramel blonde, or honey brown

* * *

><p>The conference officially starts in three minutes, but Zero Salvo and Francesco Salvo was still not there. Reborn, as the main character of this conference, was getting a little bit cocky. He was extremely afraid that Zero and Francesco will just send him a message that they were busy and couldn't come. He really hates those kind of people, they remind him of this particular person, this colour of white...<p>

"Hey~ Reborn-kun!" At the worst time ever, that _particular_ person appeared.

"Byakuran...GESSO!" Reborn said in fury. "Why in the freaking world are you here!"

"Oh hey, Reborn-kun, I am here in the Japan base all along, I thought you knew that~" Byakuran said with a giant smile. "And Reborn-kun, why in the world are you so pissed right now, did somebody humiliate your height, Reborn-kun?"

"Byakuran...if you dare..." Reborn said taking out his silver revolver from the side of his pocket. But then he calmed down and decided to answer Byakuran's question. "We went to see Tsuna."

"..." Byakuran was suddenly silent. When he spoke again, his tone was extremely serious, strange for him in a way. "Ah, Tsunayoshi-kun..." He said dropping back into memories. But quickly, he regained normal, even though that sorrow look was still in his eyes. "Nya, Reborn-kun, why are you guys displaying such a formal setting? Is somebody important coming?"

"Oh, the boss of the Salvo family and Zero Salvo, somebody I don't know how to describe." Reborn said with a small smile.

"Ah, I see, you mean _the_ Salvo family?" Byakuran suddenly added. "_The_ Salvo family? That assassination committee with an even longer history than the Vongola Family?"

This time, it was Reborn who was a little bit confused. "History longer than the Vongola family?" He exclaimed. "I didn't get that information from anywhere!"

"Oh, you can't find that, of course." Byakuran said with a bitter smile. "That family was always in the back ground since their first boss disappeared mysteriously. But believe it or not, one of their top class family member can beat at least three of your guardians in twenty minutes."

"That strong!" Gokudera exclaimed. "Impossible!" But then he remembered Zero holding a knife against Hibari's neck, right after he just passed out weakly. Bitting his lips, he realised how important it was to become the Salvo's ally.

"What's their motive of becoming our ally though?" Reborn suddenly said. "SInce they are that strong, I think they do not need any protections from the Vongola, so..."

"But please Remember it is the current Salvo Family we are talking about. I must say their size was much smaller even though I cannot say their ability is weaker which is quite unlikely." Byakuran said cooly. "Four hundred years ago, they were an existence like the Vendice. Well, I mean, not scary ghost like thingys flying all around catching good people, I meant by they were the judge of the dark world. Not just in Italy, but in the whole European area, because this family actually originated in France. They even had some connections with the Meidicis."

"So you meant that the Salvo might want our support?" Reborn while fidgeting with his pen. Checking the clock one more time, he saw it was only twenty second till the meeting time. "They were going to be late." He suddenly changed the topic.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two..." He counted down looking at his clock.

"PONG!" The front door suddenly opened. Reborn's eyebrows twisted as he remembered that the door was locked. But when he saw the revolver with smokes and the hole on the door handle where the key hole was, he quickly understood the situation.

"Ah..." He said as he saw Zero who was standing beside a tall young man. Zero was in his black cloak top to bottom, but that young man, he was just a little too shiny...

"Ah, bonjour!" The young man smiled. The smile resembled that person so much that the guardians were frozen on the spot. But this young man was definitely not him since they were nothing alike on appearance.

"Bonjour, mina-san." Francesco Salvo said in Japanese with a weird French accent. "I am Francesco Salvo, the boss of the Salvo family."

"And I am here, to become your ally." He smiled a little and then turned his head toward Zero. "Do you agree, Zero?" He said happily, but the question was so strange...

"Ah of course." Zero said in his typical chill tone. "Also..."

**"To get something straight."**

_What you always wished for would always come at an inappropiate time._


	5. The Other Side of the Hell River

**hey this is miko-chan, sorry for not updating yesterday, so longer chapter today! Anways, cough, I should say sorry about the typos in french and no translations, I would provide them in the chapter coming up. Ok, so, I read the reviews and here are some guesses about Zero, I just concluded all of them here. I am not saying anything's right or wrong, I guess mina-sna will find something out after reading this chapter.**

**1) Zero's a zombie on some standards.**

**2) Zero's a hybrid of Tsuna and Primo.**

**3) Zero's kinda like Tsuna, but not so sure since Tsuna's killed...**

**4) Zero is definitely Tsuna!**

**Ah, well, What should I say about them...more than one of them is right...hum...maybe later.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 4: The Other Side of the Hell River<strong>

"Ah of course." Zero V. Salvo said in his typical chill tone. "Also..."

"To get something straight." He said tilting his head to one side like a curious child. "So so misunderstandings can be caused in the future."

"Very good idea, Zero." Reborn nodded in agreement, "Spit it out."

"Zero, please." Francesco Salvo grinned at Zero and nodded his head slightly. Replying with a slight node, Zero started talking.

"In worst case scenarios, us as the Vongola's ally will help out." Zero started abruptly with a dangerous topic. Sasagawa's eyebrows twisted as he heard the word 'worst case scenario'. He clearly remembered that on _that_ day, when the enemy came, _he_ said that word, too. "Our duty as your ally will be fulfilled properly, but please remember, we are not your servant, meaning we will not wipe your ass for you."

"Watch your mouth, Zero Salvo." Rokudo Mukuro said in an unhappy tone. "This is not your home, if you act wild here, kufufufu..." He didn't finish the sentence, he left it hanging with a laugh that would make people shiver.

"Ah, Mist Guardian-dono, I understand." Zero said with no wave of emotion through his voice, meaning no anger nor happiness._ Guardian-dono? _Francesco was genuinely confused right now. _Why in the world will Zero-sama call these people, I mean_ **these** _people, '-dono'?_ Shaking his head slightly, Francesco decided that if it was Zero's choice, he would not interfere. Looking at Zero with his worried eyes, he muttered a sentence in French under his breathe.

"Ça va faire mal, votre coeur?" Francesco muttered. The meaning inside his words were unclear, but Gokudera who understood French clearly felt something wrong. He couldn't comprehend what Francesco was thinking.

_Does it hurt, your (polite form) heart_? Gokudera bite his lips. _Why in the world would Zero's heart hurt? Is there a problem with his heart?_ But his sixth sense told him that it had nothing to do with the body, but more to do with emotions. But Gokudera couldn't just get any further than that.

"So you meant that the Salvo Committee would help us at attacks but if the attack will endanger your own family, you would betray us?" Reborn said slowly with an edge of dangerousity inside his voice.

"No." Zero said calmly. For a second, Reborn thought he was Tsuna in hyper mode. "I would prefer to say that we will retrieve our family members from the battle field and settle down somewhere. But we will do nothing to harm the Vongola unless you harm us first."

"Then there's nothing to say.' Reborn said. "All those are on the agreement. Once Francesco signs these documents along with us, I guess there's no disagreement with us whatsoever."

"You sure you will not betray us, like that incident exactly one year earlier?" Zero said coldly. "Like what you guys did to your own boss, your very own sky, you best friend?"

"How did you know that?" There was madness inside Gokudera and Yamamoto's voice when they called out in unison.

"Well, trust our information net." This time, Francesco took the answer time timer. "Also, remember we have this earl...uh no...this gentleman here." He said while patting Zero's should gently. "I think mina-san already know his ability."

"Mind reading..." Mukuro murmured to himself. "Kufu, just like Vongola, making me want to take over this Zero Salvo's body."

"Cough," Reborn coughed quietly as he fired a bullet into the air. Everyone went silent one second later, but Zero, for some reason, let out a short laugh, Reborn decided to ignore that, so Zero was lucky even though everyone present doubt that Zero will lose to Reborn. "Cough, Francesco, you can just read the documents here, I think all your questions will be answered. Also, Zero," His head turned to Zero as he handed the pile of papers to the suddenly frozen Francesco. "Zero, please do not laugh at me, or..." He took out his silver Revolver. The rest of the sentence were not needed to be spoken out by words.

"Ah, REborn-dono," Zero said slowly as he took out his revolver from somewhere inside his cloak. It was also silver: the same version as Reborn's, but there was a spot of red located on the front part of the revolver. "I don't think that would work." He said slowly while he checked the bullet vat on his revolver.

"Just kidding." Reborn put his revolver back without an extra word. Zero saw Reborn's actions and did the same.

Twenty minutes later, after Francesco finished scanning the document, he nodded his head showing that he understood the things listed, and he agreed all of them. A unnoticeable smile appeared on Reborn's face. He quickly took a dip of ink with his pen and signed his name on the bottom of the document. Then he passed the pen and the documents to Francesco who was sitting on the opposite side of the table.

"Please sign." Reborn said politely, to everyone's surprise.

"Ah." Francesco nodded with a sunny smile. But to his own habit, he took a look at Zero for agreement. But Zero weren't looking at him. Quickly, he realised his position right now: the boss of the Salvo family to the outside. Then he regained calm and nodded at Reborn, but he didn't know every movement of his actions was already recorded into Reborn's brain.

"Seems like Francesco likes you a lot, Zero." Reborn said slowly. "So why don't you sign the documents, just to my favour?"

Silence. That was way too sudden, nobody knew what to react.

"Ah, if you say so, Reborn-dono." To everyone's surprise, Zero replied first. And he _agreed_ with Reborn? That was quite unexpected. "Boss, do I have your permission?" He leaned down towards Francesco.

Francesco's eyes were filled with worries. He muttered a few words of French into Zero's ear, but as Zero nodded gently, his heart finally dropped back to its appropriate place. _So Zero wasn't risking anything,_ he sighed in relief.

Zero took the pen. He quickly took a dip of ink and put one of his finger on the tip of the pen. Rubbing the tip to make it sharper, Zero bit the tip of the pen in everyone's surprise. But then Hibari explained the situation.

"Ahwo, to make the writing more fluent on this kind of paper, smart, Zero. You look like you have been using this kind of old fashioned pen from 500 years ago for a long time." He said with interest.

"Of course." Zero said naturally. "I am an assassin, right? I need to know a lot of things." Then like a noble, he sighed the document in two seconds. When the documents were passed back to Reborn, his eyes were quickly filled with surprise.

"What's this name?" Reborn said. "I cannot recognise the words."

"Of course not." This time, Francesco answered. "That was our official signing pattern ever since the start of our family, designed by the founder of our family Earl uh never mind. Nobody can read it clearly except us."

"What does it say?" Reborn said impatiently.

"**Checkmate**." Zero said coldly.

* * *

><p>"Boss." A gentle knock on the door, then a young man entered. There was a cup of black tea on the plate he was holding. Gently, trying not to disturb the young man who was working hard on the files right now, he put the cup which was made with high class china on the edge of the wooden table. "Boss, afternoon tea time."<p>

"Ah, Ivan!" The young man took off his black glasses slowly as his other hand reached for the cup. "Thank you very much, for taking care of me like that everyday." He took a sip of tea slowly. After he put the cup down, one of his hand combed his hair to the side, making his left eye visible for the others.

"Ah, boss, you are not wearing the eye patch today!" Ivan said in surprise. "How come, I thought..."

"It doesn't matter Ivan." The young man replied calmly with his smile. "Since you are one of my best comrade, I think it doesn't matter anymore. And nobody dare to call me a demon anymore since, you know, I am now at this position at a quite young age due to some incidents."

"Earl Salvo..." Ivan said slowly, muttering out the words he memorised when he was seven at a Noble's school. "The French King's close helper, often deal with the business involving with the Italian government and the 'underworld' of Paris, have the power and money to move an army..."

"Yep." The young man said slowly, putting one hand on his left eye due to his habit. "Earl Salvo, I guess I am already used to it. Since I came to this position at the age of eleven or ten, I forgot, ten I think. I already have four years of experience of dealing with others, so yeah, no need to worry."

"But for your left eye, boss." Ivan said with worries. "I thought you cannot see through that eye properly..."

"You are right, Ivan." The young man nodded. "How can a red eye see through the world in its normal colour? All I can see is that the world is dyed in the bloody red, like somebody just killed everyone on Earth and used all the human's blood to paint this world red." There was a waver of sadness inside his voice.

"Boss..." Even though he was extremely worried, Ivan quickly regained to his normal mode. "Boss, there's some issues with Italy."

"Huh, say it out please." The young man said with a grin.

"There's a new family rising called the Vongola, and it is getting closer and closer with the Cavallone which is already under our control. The Vongola was also growing stronger, it might be a threat to the Salvo in the future, shall we terminate the family?"

"The Vongola..." The young man said quietly, "The Vongola by Giotto and G?"

"Yes, it was rumoured that the person who started the family was called Giotto." Ivan said as he looked down at his documents, his hands under the lines trying to get the informations. "And maybe somebody called Shimon Cozart."

"Ah, so it is the Vongola!" The young man said with a short laugh. Then he quickly turned on his serious mode. "No."

"Why, boss?" Ivan said in confusion. "It's a great time to destroy it before it becomes a larger threat to our family, _your_ family, Earl Salvo!"

"It's not the time yet." The young man remained calm as he turned his head and looked outside at the sky, the ring with a red diamond in the middle on his finger shined under the reflections of the bright sun light-the mysterious Salvo Ring. "Maybe later."

"But didn't you create this family to destroy the Vongola in the future," Ivan said in even more confusions. "Right, Earl Zero Vendetta Salvo?"

"Gah!" Zero woke up with a start. Knocking his head gently, he cursed himself under his breathe. _Its been a while now_, he told himself, it's been a while since he started to have dreams about the past, the stories before he came _here_ along with Francesco for the mission, but he really didn't like the dreams, they might cause the seal to corrupt quicker which was really bad. "Maybe some sleeping pills..." he said slowly. Then he heard the knock on the door. Thinking that he was sleeping inside the Salvo family HQ right now, he opened the door without putting his cloak on, even his eye patch was off. And that was the first deadly decision he made since he first arrived at this place.

Slowly, Zero turn the handle of the door thinking it would only be Francesco or Leo who were the only people inside the HQ who had guts to knock on his door. But when he opened the door, he mind froze, and he quickly remembered that he was sleeping inside the Vongola HQ right now.

To the person standing outside, who happened to be Yamamoto, everything became more complicated. He was just here to call Zero up and tell him that it's breakfast time, but he didn't expect to see this, he didn't expect to see this at all, not at all.

In front of face was somebody who looked extremely like Tsuna, no, the same as Tsuna, like a clone, except his skin was paler. And there was something wrong with his face, he couldn't figure that out at first, but when he took a look at the face one more time, he realised it quickly.

The left eye of this person was red, the pure bloody red of a murder scene.

"Huh?" Yamamoto said in confusion. "Tsuna?" He called out the banned name inside his heart out of instincts.

That was when Zero suddenly remembered he was 'ordered' by Francesco to stay in the Vongola for further instructions, and that was also when he remembered that he only got his sleeping things on right now. Then touching his head gently, he figured out that there was no hood covering his head. When his hand slid down to his face, he realised that there was no eye patch either.

Then his gaze focused on the man looking at him with interest in front of him: Yamamoto Takashi. Then the name: "Tsuna?" Out of pure instincts, Zero replied the 'question' with a small "Yes?".

"TSUNA!" This time Yamamoto was totally freaked out. His shout awakened Zero. Tsuna? Why is he calling me Tsuna? He asked himself. And why did I reply 'yes'?

For the first time, Zero was a little mad. Quickly, he shut the door with a loud bang. Then in two seconds' time, he put one his cloak and the hood. Then he reopened the door again with a calm face.

"What's wrong, Yamamoto Takashi?" He said in his natural tone. "Why did you call me up so early in the morning?"

"I thought I just saw the ghost of Tsuna..." Yamamoto muttered slowly. When he relooked at Zero again, he said with a apologising smile. "Oh sorry, Zero, I think I just saw the ghost of my..."

"Former boss?" Zero finished the sentence for him. "Sure, I understand. You guys miss him a lot from the look of it."

"Yeah." Then dead silence. But then Yamamoto reacted quickly. "Oh, it's already breakfast time, Zero. So please come down here with me so we can head for the breakfast room, or you might get lost."

"Ah, breakfast?" Zero murmured. "I don't need to eat breakfast." He tilted his head. "Thank you though, Yamamoto Takashi. I will meet you in the main hall one hour later for further discussions." Then he shut the door right in front of Yamamoto's face.

"No need for breakfast?" Yamamoto said with a smile. "Pay attention to your health, Zero!" He called out loudly, then without turning back, he ran down the hall for breakfast. There would be non left if he don't hurry.

"Breakfast..." Inside the room, Zero sighed leaning on the wooden door. He already threw the cloak back onto the ground. To tell the truth, he really didn't like the cloak that much, but it was necessary, or...

"Health..." Zero said with a bitter smile, a flash of sadness went through his normal eye which had the honey brown pupil.

"I am already dead, how can there be something called 'health'?" Putting one hand on his silent chest, Zero said slowly.


	6. Disruption of Mind

**Chapter 5: Disruption of Mind (REVISED 2.0)**

When Zero finally got himself properly dressed (meaning properly covered in the dark cloak with a hood covering his head), he headed down towards the main hall at a quick speed. He knew he was already thirty seconds late, if he's thirty seconds more late than now, it would make exactly one minute. And somewhere inside his head, probably his instincts, told him that if he's one minute late, it would cause him some big trouble, and that same instinct told him that it had something to do with that Sun Arcobaleno Reborn.

"Ha, memories or habits left from my last life." He laughed at himself before finally pushing open the door with will lead him to the main hall. He double checked his hood and made sure that it covered his face nicely. But when his hand went for his left eye, he found that he forgot to put on his eyepatch. "Shoot." He cursed under his breathe. But then he decided that he didn't want to be more late than right now, so he just ignored it.

"Oh, so you are here, Zero." Reborn said with a slight smile on his face. He was holding a china cup containing his favourite dark coffee, no sugar added. Beside him, Yamamoto was giving a giant grin to Zero and Gokudera was staring at Zero's face blankly as if he was thinking something. Rokudo Mukuro and Hibari Kyouya was nowhere to be seen, but normally, if there was an important meeting, they would show up anytime. Sasagawa was also not present, which was quite a surprise for Zero.

"Reborn-dono, Rain and Storm Guardian-dono, good morning." Zero bowed slightly towards the three people: perfect 45 degrees bow. "Sorry for letting you wait one extra minute. Is there anything important today?"

"So, your dear boss Francesco left you here," Reborn didn't answer Zero's question. Instead he displayed another question at Zero. "Why do you think he did that, leaving you here in the Vongola?"

"Francesco has his own reasons, Reborn-dono." Zero said coldly. "And I have no right to know about it."

"To learn more about us so we can cooperate better?" Reborn ignored Zero as he stirred his coffee continuously. "Or to spy on us? What do you think, Zero Salvo of the Salvo Assassination Committee?"

"I do not understand what you are talking about, Reborn-dono." Zero said fluently without any hesitation. "I was called here by Rain Guardian-dono, if there is nothing important, I shall retreat back to my room, then." Then he turned his body and prepared to head out the room.

"Wait!" Yamamoto called out, "Zero! We have something to do! And we need your help. Sasagawa is not here right now because he went to visit his sister, Hibari went to get more information, and as for Mukuro...well, you understand. In addition to that," Yamamoto let out a giant grin. "Well, Squalo and the rest of the Varia is arriving here today! They will be here in approximately twenty minutes!"

"Huh." Zero muttered under his breathe. "The Varia, the Independent Assassination Squad of the Vongola Family..."

"Same as you and your family, Salvo." Gokudera said in a rushy tone. He still didn't accept Zero yet. Well, not fully, maybe a little already.

"What's the issue you guys were talking about earlier?" Zero already threw the arrival of the Varia to the back of his head. That was not the most important thing on his list right now, also, he didn't really give a damn about the Varia, he really don't think they deserved his attention. But, that was wrong. He will find out just how wrong he was later.

"The important issue?" Reborn put the empty cup on a small desk in front of his chair. "About the death of dame-Tsuna. That was the first reason why we are even in Japan right now."

"What about it?" Zero said with no emotions, as usual, "You people killed him. There's nothing to discuss about that issue." It was a fact, not a question. It ended with a dot, not a curved question mark.

"Ah..." This time, Gokudera spoke first. "Yes, we did kill him, and we did it on our own will."

"So...?" Zero motioned at him to continue by giving a small nod.

"But under special circumstances." Yamamoto took the question. "Extreme circumstances."

"So extreme that you had to ended the life of the person who cared for you the most with your own hands with no hesitation whatsoever?" Zero threw out this question into the three people's heart, ripping open their still unhealed wound while adding more salt on the top.

"You don't understand." Gokudera said slowly, "You cannot understand the situation if we don't tell you the details."

"Then tell me the details." Zero's voice didn't change at all, but now, even Reborn felt that it was necessary to tell Zero exactly what happened. Yamamoto threw Reborn a questioning gaze, and Reborn replied quickly with a unnoticeable nod, as if trying to escape something unavoidable in life.

Coughing slightly, Yamamoto started his story. His eyes were filled with sadness, but he holds a smile on his face. Zero's eyebrows raised under the hood. He hated this kind of smile. Forcing yourself to smile when you don't feel like it, how ugly.

"That was a fairly sunny day, but at noon, the sun suddenly went down and was replaced with cloud. The day started normally at first. Breakfast, short meeting, then lunch. Everyone of us was fairly happy, because soon, we would be heading back to Namimori for vacation. After lunch, everyone went to their room or office and started doing their own work."

"As usual, Tsuna was expecting a giant pile of filed/documents for him to sign and read over. The little baby was not there that week, he went for the annual Arcobaleno meeting, but he would be back that afternoon. All was quite peaceful, of course, as normal, except Hibari and Mukuro. They were 'having some fun' inside the small garden right under the window of Tsuna's office. Because of that, Tsuna sometimes couldn't focus all his mind onto his work."

"The little baby was back one hour after we finished lunch." Yamamoto said taking a sip of water. "He headed straight for Tsuna's office, as usual. I followed after him because I have something to ask Tsuna about, something about visiting my father one day earlier since it would be his birthday then."

"But on my way to the office of Tsuna, I found something wrong. The sky outside was no longer covered with the clouds showing the sign of rain, but was covered in some strange purple mists. I first assumed that it was Mukuro, but seeing Mukuro still down there 'having fun' with Hibari, I knew there was something extremely wrong."

"Thus informing Tsuna, all seven of us headed down to the main hall along with the little baby and Giannini. The father of Tsuna, Sawada Iemitsu, was also present since he was still the head of CEDEF. Then somebody appeared, it was-"

"YOOOOSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" A nostalgic voice, uh, scream rushed into everyone's ear. To his habit, Zero quickly took out two sharp knives out in his right hand and one revolver in his right hand. His eyebrows twisted a little showing his anger. Zero really hated others disturbing him while somebody else was telling him something important.

"Uh, the Varia's here." Gokudera said nervously. He was acting a little tired today, probably because he had some sort of a cat fight with Sasagawa yesterday. "Please put the things down, Salvo, they are not our enemy, nor yours."

"I am not so sure about that." Zero said cooly. "They are the independent assassination squad, are you sure they will listen to you?"

"Zero's right." Reborn said with a smiling (evil) face as he finished drinking another cup of coffee. "Zero might needs to fight with the Varia if they think that Zero is another piece of garbage."

"They'll see." Zero said in his usual tone. But before his voice went down, the door was kicked open. Zero's eyebrows raised as he threw a silver knife into the dust in front of him.

"Shishishishi..." The voice of Bel, "We are finally here, right, Fran? You piece of freaking asshole."

"Ah senpai," Fran's tone with no emotions, but unlike Zero, that tone was quick humorous. "Do you know that you just barely missed a knife?"

"Shut up." Viper was also present. "I don't remember anyone inside the Vongola using knifes this nicely though."

"You garbage, shut the fuck up." Of course, Squalo, who was always so energetic (wrong, it's no where to use his excitement), "After twenty fucking hours you guys are still chatty like hell, I am gonna kill you!"

Then a loud BANG, the shot of a gun. Reborn quickly finished the coffee inside his hand. _Xanxus_? A confusion raised inside his head. _He is also here?_

"We are here~Shishishishi~" Bel stepped out of the dusts with his signature grin. But when he noticed Zero, his face quickly turned solemn. "Who are you, asshole? I don't know you." Before finishing a sentence, he suddenly threw a silver knife at Zero at top speed. But Zero didn't even blink and caught the knife of Bel with one hand. Without moving, he broke the knife in half.

"Did you just call me 'asshole'?" Zero said with no emotion. But Bel was clearly frozen with a second. What a nostalgic voice, he thought, it was just like, just like that Sawada brat! But Zero wasn't thinking about anything. He took out moor knives from somewhere inside his cloak and pinned Bel down on the door.

"Ah, senpai's beaten this easily!" Fran said with his signature look. "How can senpai be this stupid!"

"Quite using the illusion for Belgphor, Fran, the Mist of the Varia." Zero said slowly, taking out one more revolver. "You know I can just kill you right now, with what I have." Looking at the confusion inside Fran's eyes, he added another sentence. "With your power, you should be able to sense it, as Rokudo Mukuro-dono's apprentice."

That was when Fran's face colour suddenly changed. "You..you have _that_ Hell Ring?"

"Hum, great, you detected it." Zero said slowly as he focused his gaze at Squalo. "Squalo, weapon: sword, the king of Sword in this era. But you might not be able to beat Yamamoto Takashi with his father's sword."

"Who the fuck are you?" Squalo said impatiently. Then he turned to Yamamoto. "Yamamoto, who the fuck in the world is this asshole."

"Ah," Yamamoto said with a dry smile. "Haha, this 'asshole' is Zero V. Salvo of the Salvo assassination committee."

"The Salvo?" Squalo said slowly. "The largest assassination family in the world."

"Yes." Zero said. "It's great you know that."

"But why the hell are you inside this place, why are-HEY BOSS!" Squalo suddenly protested. But then he suddenly turn quiet.

"Xanxus?" Gokudrea muttered under his breathe. "Xanxus? Why is he here?"

Appearing right in front of ZEro's face, was definitely Xanxus, the boss of the Varias.

"Garbage." He said cooly at Zero. But Zero didn't went nuts, instead, he replied Xanxus's insult with something extremely smart.

"Big Garbage." Zero said without any hesitation. Then he went for an attack by his fist. But Xanxus was expecting it, Zero's fist was caught in midair.

"Ah..." Xanxus let out a short yawn. "Such a weak garbage, not even worthy of..."

"Being your opponent?" Zero said slowly. That was when Xanxus noticed that something was wrong: a revolver was against his chest, right over his heart. "Wanna fight?" Zero said with a short laugh. "Ha, I bet the boss of the Varia don't even has the gut to do so."

"If you say so..." Then Xanxus's body disappeared. Zero hesitated for a movement. Then putting his revolver back, he disappeared too.

"Sa, so our scary boss went to the training room along with the cloak freak ~" Fran said with a smile. "And me don't even know how did the situation came to this step! How about you senpai?"

"Nah, shut the fuck up." Bel said as he threw a short knife into Fran's head decoration, uh, maybe hat? "What the hell just happened, Arcobaleno?" He shouted at Reborn while playing with his small knife in one hand.

"How do I know?" Reborn jumped off his chair. "Let's follow them." But only Gokudera noticed a small smile on Reborn's half covered face.

* * *

><p>"Worried about Zero-sama, Ivan?" Francesco said as he stuffed down a piece of toasted bread down his throat with no table manner at all. "It's all right, you know, Ivan, it's Zero-sama who we are talking about after all." Before he finished the sentence, another bread disappeared inside his skinny body.<p>

"Ah, I know that." Ivan Salvo, the young man around twenty sitting beside Francesco in blue said slowly. "Earl Zero would never be beaten by some weaklings from the Vongola. But I am just...just..."

"Worried that the seal he put inside him before he came to this era is gonna erupt?" Francesco finished the sentence for Ivan. Ivan nodded grimly in agreement.

"But...but if the seal is broken during his time at the freaking Vongola family, Earl Zero might...he might..." Ivan looked pale.

"Ah, sa, I understand." Francesco patted Ivan on the head slowly. "You are not the only person worried afterall, I am extremely worried for Zero-sama too. But this is Zero-sama right, we should learn to trust each other. After all, we lived with each other for how long, twenty years?"

"I know!" This time Ivan looked anxious. "But you know how much damage did the Vongola caused to Earl Zero! If the seal is broken during the time Earl Zero is still at Vongola..."

"There is a high possibility that he might just destroy the whole Vongola Family like snap!"

_People who could commit suicide are always the strongest in heart, because they have the gut to face death themselves._


	7. I Dare You to Cry

**Chapter Six: I Dare You to Cry**

When Ivan Salvo was born, he was not called Ivan Salvo, he was called Ivan Jefferson Krakow. His father was from Poland while his mother was a native French woman who worked inside the house of Earl Salvo as a gardener and a cook assistant. Ivan's father left his mother before Ivan was born. Actually, he didn't leave them, he was just killed by a horse carriage 'accidentally' since he was a small governor in his homeland.

Six months after Ivan was born, the Salvo family welcomed another new life, somebody who would later be called as 'Earl Salvo-sama' by Ivan himself. The mother of the baby, the official wife of the current Earl Salvo, was dead giving birth to her first son. It was rumoured that when the baby was born, he didn't cry nor laugh, he just remained cool. And the left eye of the baby was red, the eye called as the 'demon's eye'.

The baby was named as Zero Vendémiaire Salvo, and he father named him to be the next Earl Salvo. The mother of the young Zero Vendémiaire Salvo was Japanese, thus this boy looked a little more Asian than French. His hair was brown, same as his right pupil. But there was something strange about his personality. For example, he didn't smile once until he was three. But the times he smiled, the smile was even brighter than the sun.

Zero Vendémiaire Salvo was given lessons about how to act like a noble ever since he was four. But he seemed like he already knew how. After teaching him for only one morning, the teacher told his father that his son no longer needs any kind of education, because he seemed to know everything already. Of course, Earl Salvo didn't believe it at first. Three years later, when Zero should officially start to learn about Mathematics, Philosophy, etc., Earl Salvo tested him. And that was when he got totally stunned. The result: his dear seven years old son Zero Vendémiaire Salvo was taught by an university teacher right away.

The day Ivan he himself met the legendary Zero Vendémiaire Salvo was when he was eight. At the age of eight, he already started helping his mother on her gardening jobs. That day, when he was sweeping the leaves on the small garden trail, he saw the young Zero, at that time also eight, walking towards him. But Zero was looking down at the ground, thinking something.

Zero Vendémiaire Salvo did not notice the existence of Ivan Jefferson Krakow until he heard a small 'Bonjour monsieur Salvo...". He immediately turned his head. Ivan remembered the first time he saw Zero's appearance so clearly that he even dreamt about it today.

The face of the young Zero Vendémiaire Salvo was...well, not yet handsome, but somehow...delicate, like a china doll, so fragile that you might break it in one touch, but so well made that you can't help yourself but touch it. His left eye was covered with a well-made black eye patch and was also covered by the front of his brown hair. When he noticed Ivan, a beautiful smile appeared on his emotionless face, so bright that Ivan was shocked for a second.

"Ah, bonjour, Monsieur Krakow." He said with a bright smile. "Comment ca va (how are you)?"

"Ah, bien, bien (good, good)..." Ivan didn't know how to respond for a second. The next Earl Salvo talking to him in such a kind tone? Impossible! "Thanks you." He said naturally without noticing.

"Why 'thank you'?" The young Zero was a little confused, but the smile remained. "You said hi to me, of course I should reply!"

At that movement, Ivan was quite stunned. _How did Earl Zero knew what I was thinking!_ He thought inside his mind. But he quickly cooled down. _It's Zero Vendémiaire Salvo who I am talking to, the __**legendary**__ Zero Vendémiaire Salvo! _"Yes, you are right, Monsieur Salvo." Ivan replied with a smile. "But you look..." He remembered Zero's expression before he saw him, that expression pained him.

"But Monsieur Salvo, you looked...lonely..." He said automatically. When he realised what he just said, Ivan's face was quickly filled with fear. _Did I...did I just told the future Earl Salvo of France that he looked lonely? Me? Some kind of a dumb gardener? Oh my freaking god I am so doomed Zero-sama's gonna crash me or kill me or hang me or tore me into-_

"Haha!" Ivan's crazy thoughts stopped when he heard the innocent laugh. To his surprise, he saw the young Zero laughing, covering his mouth with one hand. The laugh was extremely pure, so different from his expression just thirty seconds earlier. "You looked very interesting just then." Zero Vendémiaire Salvo grinned at the extremely confused Ivan. Looking at Ivan in the eye for a second, he let out another short laugh. "Oh, you thought I am going to crash you?" He joked. But Ivan nodded with fear, along with the question how did Zero knew what he was thinking.

"Oh, nice idea." Zero Vendémiaire Salvo smirked. But then he shook his head and patted Ivan on the shoulder gently. "Of course I won't do that, Monsieur Ivan Krakow. You are just telling me the truth!"

"Huh?" Ivan was confused for a second. But then he understood what Zero Vendémiaire Salvo meant. This young boy standing in front of him right now, the young cute boy rumoured to be the smartest of all French noble kids, was lonely. The future Earl of Salvo, the best helper of the French king, Zero Vendémiaire Salvo, is lonely.

"Unbelievable, eh?" The young Zero smiled a little. "Well, of course, I am always smiling, no matter where. But when I am alone, I...I can't help but put that programmed smile down. I don't want to be like this actually, but nobody knows! Nobody can know!" He was like talking to himself. Ivan listened in silence, but his heart was racing as Zero talked calmly. "I want to be normal, like everyone else, but I cannot change my fate. I chose my own fate, I chose this world, but I just-" His voice was cut of abruptly.

"_What the hell in the world are you freaking talking about! Take down your freaking mask!_" Ivan, the usually quiet boy, suddenly took a tight grip of Zero's shoulders and started shaking Zero with huge amount of energy. "What the freak are you thinking everyday, Zero Vendémiaire Salvo! You _are_ normal! You are not just normal, but also _lucky_! Compare to me...well, not just me! Look at everyone around you, they care for you so much! Well, maybe they want the power or money or whatever, but they are still helping you! You have _friends_, don't you, those kids from the other families. Your friends-"

"Shut up!" Zero Vendémiaire Salvo screamed out loudly, totally losing his control. Ivan was so freaked out that his knees crumbled and fell to the ground. Zero stood there, breathing hard. But after such a loud shout, his face remained pale.

"Ah...ah...ah...so..sorry...je sues desolè..." Ivan said quietly, struggled to stand up. That was when Zero realised that Ivan was sitting on the floor. The shivering body and the words reminded him of somebody inside his memory, a memory long ago, about a red hair boy that lived in the same town as he did. A small smile appeared on his face, Zero knelt down and pulled up Ivan's shaking body gently.

"Nah, I should say sorry, Ivan-san." Zero Vendémiaire Salvo said slowly. "I am very sorry indeed, if I scared you."

"No...I am alright." Ivan said slowly, but there was still fear inside his eyes. "Sorry if I offended you."

"No you didn't." Zero said as he stood up and turned his back to Ivan. "It's just you prickled my old wound."

"Huh?" Ivan was a little confused.

"I don't have any friend." Zero said out loud and clear. "Remember that. I do not have any friend and I will not have any-"

"No, you do have a friend." Ivan suddenly got his gut back again as he stood up.

"Zero Vendémiaire Salvo-sama, may I please be your friend from now on?" He said with a giant grin

Zero Vendémiaire Salvo was first shocked. But then his cooled face finally crumbled. "Ah." He let out a short sigh. "Of course, if you want." For the first time as he arrived in this world, Zero smiled from his heart.

"Haha," Ivan laughed. "So that's it then!"

Before Zero turned and left the small garden, he suddenly stopped and yelled at Ivan with all his energy. "Hey, monsieur Krakow, do you want to be my close servant? If you do, you can change your name legally to Ivan Jefferson Salvo!"

Without any hesitation, Ivan nodded quickly and shouted back with the same amount of energy as Zero just did. "Of course, Zero-san, of course!"

Now, his little conversation with Francesco.

Francesco was staring at him with this strange look in his eyes. So weird that it sent a shiver up Ivan's spine.

"Did you just say...that Zero-sama will destroy Vongola if the seal is released?"

"Yes!" Ivan said filled with fear.

"You gotta be kidding me." Francesco said as he let out a short laugh. "It was just a memory seal, well also an emotion seal. How can Zero-sama destroy Vongola if it was released?"

"We are freaking not talking about the same seal!" Ivan was on the edge of going berserk. "I mean the eye! The demon's eye!"

"Wait..." Francesco was clearly confused for a second. "Wait...the demon's eye is a seal?"

"Of course, damn it!" Ivan shouted. "Didn't Earl Zero tell us about it! You forgot? You freaking idiot! But that isn't the most important thing right now, the situation in which the demon's eye will be released is that the flame of fury is somewhere near. Did you check if anybody in Vongola owns the flame of fury?" Ivan cooled down as he asked Francesco who was chewing on another peach.

"Of course, Ivan." Francesco said with a grin. "There's one guy who owns the flame. He's called Xanxus, the Vongola ninth's adopted son. But since he's in the Varia, there's nothing to worry about."

"Oh the Varia." Now Ivan's mind was totally calm. "Great, nothing will happen to Earl Zero then."

"Since the Varia seldomly visits the rest of the Vongola."

But they just didn't know how wrong they could be.

"Ha!" Xanxus shouted as he fired another silver bullet at Zero, but Zero ducked it again elegantly. During this whole time, Zero didn't attack at all, he was just jumping around lightly avoiding all the attacks. The black cloak on his body went flew along with his movements, making him look like a giant swallow.

"That Salvo guy's pretty strong, shishishi..." Bel said slowly, but there was a trace of confusion on his face.

"Senpai's actually right for once!" Fran exclaimed cooly. "Even our stupid boss cannot beat him!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Squalo shouted impatiently. But he knew, if Zero keep jumping around like that, Xanxus would be tired sooner or later, then, it would be big time for Zero.

"Ah." Zero let out a short sigh filled with impatience. "Can you just do something fiercer, boss of the Varia. Well, I guess I shouldn't expect anything good from a man being frozen by Vongola Tenth at the age of fourteen then. Am I right?"

"Shi!" Xanxus snarled. "If you say so..." He quickly switched his guns into the gun which looked like the seventh.

"Boss's gonna use his flames." Squalo said slowly. "Well, then, good luck Zero, if you can duck them."

Zero's eyebrows raised as he saw a small flare of flame from the gun. The felt this urge going up from the bottom of his heart. That was when he heart quickly sank.

"Crap." He murmured under his breathe. "I forgot. It's Xanxus."

"Haha, you afraid, garbage?" Xanxus said with a giant smile as he saw Zero running for the exit. Reborn's mouth twitched as he saw the sight, he got no idea why Zero was doing so.

"Yes, I am afraid." Zero quickly answered. He needed to get outta here as quick as possible, or...or there might be...a...

"No, you can't go." Bel quickly blocked the door. "Running away isn;t what a good child would do."

"Shit." Zero cursed as he felt Xanxus getting closer. He felt the flame of fury inside the gun, also this urge getting stronger and stronger, going up into his brain.

"There you go, garbage." Xanxus smirked as he prepared to fire. At that time, the feeling inside Zero's body finally shot inside his brain. Before he finally lose grip of his common sense, Zero used his quickest move and kicked Gokudera and Reborn out of the room, Yamamoto was also out since Gokudera kind of dragged him.

"Huh?" Fran was a little confused. "What was the cloak freak doing? I wanna know. Do you know senpai?"

"Nah," Bel didn't say anything. "Just watch."

Zero's body suddenly collapsed onto the ground. Xanxus raised his eyebrows, he didn't know what was happening, so he just backed up a little. But anyways, he felt this wave of killing intent going through his body, and the origin was the passed out Zero.

Ten seconds later, Zero moved. Slowly as he stood up, his left hand went for his left eye. Covering it gently, a shot of red light filled the room, along with this cold laugh, and a flash of silver light.

Then it disappeared just like that. When all the dusts finally died, a bloody scene appeared.

Zero was the only person standing, he was in the centre of the room, his cloak still not settled. With him as the centre, there was a circle of blood, no, serious wounded bodies of the Varias, each with ten or more cuts on their body.

"Ha..." Zero was breathing hard, his body shaking. "Ha, ha...Crap...what did I do...did I just lost myself again...did I just lose to the demon's eye...ha...ha..."

Struggle to walk, Zero staggered outside the room leaning onto the wall. He took out a small piece of paper from his pocket.

"Ha...the Vongola's top enemy family, number one...ah...here in Japan...fine...I will go there tonight then, to get rid of the side affects..." Then his body disappeared right outside the door.

But nobody noticed the colour of white outside the door.


	8. Whom the Gods Destroy

**Hello mina-san, long time no see! Well, what should Miko say...I hate school? Anyways anyways, school could be fun since there are trips, blah blah blah. But mina-san are the best! Thank you for waiting for me and supporting me all this time! Ok, should Miko have a recapp of the story? Huh...Maybe yesh, so here then:**

**1. Zero is dead. Or was dead. But definitely has no heartbeat. He looks like Tsuna, but denys that he was tsuna. He is a little solitary. He has two seals inside himself, one contains some of his memories, one is a seal on his red left eye, power unknown.**

**2. Tsuna's dead due to his guardians, what happened unknown. All guardians + Reborn are in Japan to visit Tsuna.**

**3. Salvo family, mysterious assasin family older than the Vongola family, founded in France by Earl Salvo, the family which Zero belongs.**

**Enjoy the story!**

* * *

><p>Reborn hates to be waken up in the middle of an incredulous dream, especially when the person knocking so freaking hard on the door was the damn white marshmallow chicken (huh, where did that come from?). Taking out his gun from underneath his green pillow, he fired two bullets at the door. The knocking stopped for a few seconds, and then there was a loud "BAM". The next thing Reborn knew was that the damn white marshmallow chicken was lying on top of him.<p>

A string snapped somewhere inside Reborn's brain. In silence, he kicked fiercely at Byakuran's you-know-where. With a high-pitched shriek, Byakuran shrunk into a ball and started cursing in Latin (why latin?). Reborn ignored Byakuran's pain and gave Byakuran another punch on the head. Listening to Byakuran's groaning, Reborn clapped his hands in satisfaction and asked calmly as if nothing happened, "So...why are you here?"

"Grr..." Byakuran moaned. "Oww...grrr...meow...damn you Reborn..."

"What did you say?" Reborn gave Byakuran another kick. "I didn't hear you!"

"Gr...Something happened with our top rival family..."Byakuran mutter while rubbing his head. "Maybe good news, may be bad news, depends on how you interpret it."

"Tell me what happened." Reborn said licking his lips. He knew that rival family well. That famous Japanese family has over 150 years of history, founded during the Meiji era due to dissatisfaction of the renovations Meiji promoted and the banning of Sumari cultures. What could happen to a family that even survived WW2?

"Terminated, to the last brick." Byakuran said slowly, leaving some time for Reborn to react. After a few seconds, he continued. "According to our team, it was probably done by one person. The flame of the suspect remain unknown, however, traces of "ZG-10" was detected."

"戯れです(Joke)." Reborn muttered under his breathe. "_ZG-10_...so it definitely was..."

"Yes, he would be the only possible suspect." Byakuran nodded. "I understand what you mean. But he was the only person in this world who owns that substance due to his inheritance of the Vongola family. So..."

"What you mean is that-" Reborn said abruptly.

"...Sawada Tsunayoshi is the only person who could have done this." Byakuran finished his sentence.

"But...he's already dead! Buried deep underground somewhere in Japan!" Reborn lost his temper. "How could he come back from the grave!"

"Zero Vendetta Salvo." Byakuran exclaimed loudly, interrupting Reborn. "You are excluding the fact that Zero Salvo is Sawada Tsunayoshi."

"Huh?" Reborn was unable to react for a second. "Zero is..._Tsuna_?"

"And I have proof**_s_**." Byakuran said with a slight grin as his right hand reached for a folder somewhere near his butt.

* * *

><p>Dark, it was darker than anything Tsunayoshi had ever seen. Silence, it was more seren than the deadest lake on Earth. Cold and hot, it had the strangest temperatures. And then, a flash, Death appeared.<p>

"Welcome to heaven." Death said in monotone.

"Hell." Tsuna corrected. "Hell. Hell is the only place somebody like me can end my life in."

Death stared at Tsuna with an interesting smile. "It's been a while since a candidate for my program had been this diligent."

"Diligent? Maybe." Tsuna let out a short laugh. "Anyways, what's the program you just mentioned? Tell me about it."

Death raised his eyebrows. "You are different." He said abruptly. "You did not ask why did you end up here." He tilted his head slightly as if he was a curious child, the most unlikely choice one would choose when making up a metaphor about death. Tsuna could not figure out his expression since Death's face was covered by the shadows of his hooded cloak.

"Ha." Tsuna grinned. " I am dead obviously! That is the only possible answer. Though I consider myself an atheist, the entering of you into this 物語 (story) proved myself false. With you here, good sir, why would I even ask such an meaningless question! Now, please stop making such idiotic comments, answer my question. What's the program you just mentioned about, and why am I a candidate of it? I don't remember signing up for such a program when I was alive."

Death snickered in the way Death would snicker - evilly, with a foul grin. "You surely is a smart one." He said. "Thus you deserve to be answered." Approaching Tsuna slowly, Death started explaining.

"From what I have learnt, the death you received was quite sudden, and definitely painful. Painful both physically and psychologically. You died holding the thought of something like, huh, let's see, "If I can live once again, I would..." blah blah blah. Most people hold that kind of thought. However, yours was quite interesting. If was not uncommon to see your kind of thought, but regarding the situation which you were killed...Anyways, it awakened my curiosity. I have decided to give you another chance to live, to grant you your wish." Death stopped for a few seconds as Tsuna absorbed the information. "Now, there are a few more people - well, maybe not a few - whom I found like you. However, there's only three spots. So-"

"So you, good sir, created something like the Roman Colossi so we can duel each other to death while you entertain yourself. The last three people left would be given a chance to reborn. Very like Death." Tsuna gave Death a "deathly" stare. "My wild guess, but my guesses are usually proven right when I was alive."

"How very delightful." Death clapped his hands. "I have no need to explain it to you! You surely are intelligent!"

"How many people are registered?" Tsuna said. He needed no more explanation, he just wanted to get started. He had a life to fulfil. If he was allowed to live once again, he would definitely, definitely -!

"Registered, huh?" Death took out a notepad from midair. He flipped through the many pages and gave the last entry a long look. "18926, and you should be the last one, so 18927 are registered in total. I guess I would have you guys divided into groups, and then blah blah blah."

"0.01585%, not bad." Tsuna smiled. "Lead me to my accommodation."

"'Not bad'?" Death gazed at Tsuna in surprise. Tsuna gave no response. Death shrugged and gave a wave in the air. "Good luck then. You would be assigned to Room 10 on Level 27, I guess I have no need to lead you then."

"One last thing." Tsuna said as a fog gathered around his body. "What do I have to do once I won?"

"You are so sure that you would be one of the three? Incredible!" Death muttered. "Nothing, you have to give nothing."

"You just lied." Tsuna gave Death a sneer. "But anyways, I will find out."

Death waited as Tsuna disappeared. Once no trace of Tsuna could be detected, Death shook his head slightly and murmured.

"Humans, they forget that they are dead while they are alive, and they forget that they are alive when they are dead."

* * *

><p>"Ouch." Zero Vendetta Salvo winced as he touched a cut on his face. Staring at the reflection in the mirror, Zero sighed. <em>The cloak sure comes in handy<em>, he thought, _definitely handy when it comes to covering up dragon-tattoo-like cuts on my face_. Rolling his eyes, Zero walked outside his washroom and fell facedown onto his bed. The wounds he received yesterday during the termination of that Japanese family still hurts, but no as much as three hours before since he just took Advil (Miko just took some Advil~). _That's the reason why I hate to release that Demon's seal_. Zero complained silently, _whenever I release it comes great power and great**er** pain._

The room was dark, the left eye of Zero gave out a devilish shine. Nobody except Zero and his late father had ever given a close look at the eye. Except the fact that it was bloody red as if somebody just smeared blood from a newly-killed body onto the pupil, the rest of the eye except the pupil was pitch black. A combination of red and black, blood and sin. How very demon like. Zero hated that eye, he could not remember why because before he came to Vongola he himself sealed of parts of his memories. But he knew, even though great power comes with this seal, it will not be some pleasant power. He always avoided using it, because whenever he uses it, something goes out of control. Just like the time when his late mother died.

As Zero tries to remember his past, Byakuran stood in front of his door. Byakuran was a little afraid, he should not be and will never admit he was, but he was afraid of Zero. He was now 99.999% sure that Zero is Tsuna, but he was still scared. Especially after he saw this guy who was soaked in blood slaughtering seven hundred people and demolishing three buildings under two hours without being harmed greatly.

"Geez, Byakuran Gesso." Byakuran shivered a little. "This guy will not murder you brutally. He will not kill you cut you apart chop your head off rip your arms off cut your legs off tear your heart out and then stab you a hundred times as he did to so many people yesterday."

"That is not convincing." A deep voice appeared from nowhere. Holding his scream, Byakuran turned his head and saw Lambo standing behind him. "Hurry up dude." Lambo said lazily, "Reborn kicked me here because he thought you were zooming off since you did not bring Salvo-san back in two minutes."

Taking a deep breathe, Byakuran knocked on Zero's door.

Inside the room, Zero scrambled on the bed as he tried to find his cloak as soon as he heard the knock. "Who's there?" He shouted with alert. "Why are you here this early!"

Byakuran was speechless for a second. "Uh, Zero-kun? It's already eleven o'clock in the morning."

"Oh, it's Byakuran-sama." Zero tried to remain calm. He just remembered that he threw his only cloak away three hours ago because it was tattered due to yesterday's fight. "May you please tell me why you are here?" He asked, trying to earn himself time.

"Proceed to the meeting room in 2 minutes, Salvo-san." Lambo replied before Byakuran. "Please. Or Reborn will fry Byakuran and I with KFC deep fry chicken sauce."

"**Delicious**." Byakuran added sarcastically.

"Uh..." Zero looked around the room, trying to find something which will cover up his face. His gaze landed onto a black scarf. A scarf? Zero thought. A face covering like an Arabian woman? That might work...Hesitating, Zero shouted at the door. "Please wait a few seconds, Byakuran-sama and Lambo-sama, I will be out in-"

"いち、に、三、四、いつ〜"Byakuran counted from one to five slowly. On the count of five, he kicked open the door. "Zero-kun, I don't want to be deep fried, so sorry!" He shouted into the dust. Of course, this action was planned beforehand. To attack Zero at a time he would not expect to be attacked. Thus to reveal his true look.

"Salvo-san!" Lambo shouted. "Where are you?" No response came.

"ゼロ零!" Byakuran shouted mockingly (zero-rin, literally zero-zero-chan), "Where are you? Show your face please!" Then Byakuran heard a mumble somewhere near his left feet. As he stepped one step forward, he felt something soft under his feet.

"Byakuran-sama..." A weak voice came from beneath, "Please remove your feet from my back, thank you very much..."

As Byakuran tried to remove his feet from Zero's back, his right feet tripped over Zero's body. Unable to stop himself, he fell facedown (again...) onto Zero. Zero's Sixth Sense helped him since he quickly rolled to the left. Byakuran gave the hard wood floor a kiss.

"Ow..." Byakuran winced. He turned his head slightly and realised and his hand holding a ThinkPad laptop hit Zero right in the forehead. He moved Zero's body slightly, no response came.

"I think I made him pass out." Byakuran said as he removed his hand. However, a corner of his computer dragged the scarf off Zero's face. Byakuran noticed the black scarf as he stood up and dusted his computer. Looking down, he saw a familiar face lying near his face. The only thing strange was a dragon-like tattoo on the right side of that particular face, the face of somebody he was discussing even one hour ago.

"I think I am right." Byakuran mumbled. Then he quickly carried Zero on his back and hurried outside, leaving Lambo confused inside the room, unable to find his way outside due to the dusts.


	9. Prepare for an Era Without God

**Hello mina-sama this is Miko! Thanks for all of the reviews. Anyway, I really have nothing to say. I understand that Tsuna seemed a little OOC in the last chapter compare to the manga/anime. That was Tsuna's first appearance in this story I beleive. The Tsuna who I am trying to create in this story is a little different, I am trying to make him a little similar with Byakuran. I will explain next time why. But anyways, please enjoy this very strange chapter (Miko thinks). Please review if mina-sama have any suggestions/opinions! The last sentence of this chapter actually gives away the plot a little bit...**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight: Prepare for an Era Without the Existance of God<strong>

Reborn was very surprised when the white marshmallow chicken stumbled into the supposedly _formal_ meeting room carrying a dark duffle-bag-like object on his back. The only thing un-duffle-bag-like about this object was that its has a human head. And there was something particular about that human head: it looks like the face of somebody Reborn missed so much. Jumping off his seat, Reborn walked towards Byakuran who simply threw the object onto the ground like it was actually a duffle bag.

"Jeez, this guy's lighter than _you,_ Reborn-chan." Byakuran said as he stared at the object, no, Zero, "I wonder where did all those foods he ate go." Then Byakuran turned his head to the table where all of the guardians (except Lambo who was probably still lost inside Zero's room) were present, all of whom were extremely confused. "Oh, right, my 'mission'." He laughed mockingly as he turned to face Reborn. Bowing slightly, Byakuran said as if he was reporting to the President of US. "Supreme commander Reborn-chan, the last participant of this meeting is here. Please welcome -ゼロ (zero-rin-chan)!"

Reborn was speechless for a second as he turned to face the passed-out Zero again. "ゼロ⸰ヴェンデタ⸰サレヴォ(Zero dot Vendetta dot Salvo)?" He called out Zero's full name quietly. "Isn't he..."

"沢田綱吉(Sawada Tsunayoshi)?" Byakuran tilted his head slightly and winked at Reborn. "Maybe, I am not sure. He does contain that substance which only Vongola bosses are supposed to have: ZG-10. However, there's three major differences between ゼロ and Tsuna-kun. First of all, Zero's left eye is red while his other eye is brown. Secondly, the hair colour of Zero is blondish caramel, while Tsuna-kun's was definitely a darker brown. The last one is that Zero's fire attribute is some kind of black fire which brings about a sense of termination, while Tsuna's main attribute was the flame of harmony: sky."

Staring at the sleeping (?) face of Zero, the guardians remained silent as their memories of their late sky flew into their mind. After one minute of silence, Rokudo Mukuro grew a little bit impatient and stood up all of a sudden, scaring everybody including Reborn.

"オオウウカイイイ〜(please use google translate to pronounce this)" Mukuro said while his gaze was still fixed at Zero. "Where did all these gibberish come from. Vongola's dead for sure, I killed him." A pause. "How in the freaking world can you prove to me that this cold-blooded Salvo assassin guy - even by 0.1% of chance - is that stupidly innocent Vongola?" Mukuro raised his voice.

Byakuran looked at Mukuro with a questioning stare. "By 0.1% of chance? Strange number." Then Byakuran reached for his laptop (remember the laptop Byakuran used to hit Zero's head from the previous chapter?). "Well, why did I bother bringing this guy here like this? Of course I have freaking proof_s_!" Then he flipped open his computer quickly. As his right hand typed furiously on the keyboard, Byakuran said in monotone to the guardians. "The following content is rated R++ by the Filming Institute of Byakuran-chan. Please try not to scream while viewing. Thank you for your cooperations." Then he clicked play.

What he played was basically the video of the massacre (?) Zero committed yesterday. Of course, Miko would not bother describing the content since if she does so, the rating of this story would immediately be raised to R++ (according to Byakuran). However, certain parts of the clip should be mentioned so the story can move on smoothly.

"クフフフ〜(kufufufu)" The laugh which usually comes from Mukuro came from Zero's mouth while he slashed off the heads of two people. "かかかかか(kakakakaka)!" He shouted into the dark sky as more blood soaked his cloak. Zero waited while more members of the Japanese family ran towards him. His cloak was already tattered, thus his face was exposed. A man came forward holding a synth (nice weapon) aiming it at Zero's neck. Before the man could get near Zero, his upper body disappeared as if there was an invisible force. Zero's emotionless grin grew larger as he killed more men. But then, a shout from the boss of that Family froze all his actions.

"Aren't you...aren't you...the dead Vongola Decimo!" The old man shouted. " Why are you here? How are you still alive!" He screamed as if he was out off his mind. "God god please, forgive me! Why did you let a devil slip out off Hell!"

"Huh?" Zero smirked cruely, his left eye glowing in the dark. "What did you say, me, a devil from Hell? Or..." Zero's mind stopped for a second, his tone grew soft as the sentence proceeded. "Vongola Decimo?"

"Yes, Vongola Decimo, our godfather: Sawada Tsunayoshi!" The boss answered quickly as if answering the question would save his life. "Sawada Tsunayoshi-sama, the 10th boss of Vongola! But he was betrayed and then killed one year ago by his guardians! How could he be here within my family killing my people?"

"Sawada...Tsunayoshi..." Zero's killing stopped. His head started aching all of a sudden as the cold expression started fading from his face. "Sawada...Tsuna...yoshi..." Without warning, his weapon - a sword - dropped out off his hand. A man went forwards and slashed through Zero's stomach. Blood flew out, but Zero did not attack back. He collapsed to the ground, kneeling, his hands holding his head. "Sawada...Tsunayoshi...Sawada Tsunayoshi..." He repeated mechanically as if that was the only phrase he knew. "Why do I feel that...I know this name..." He murmured quietly under his breath.

Then there was a snap, as if something broke inside his mind, many obscure images started flowing into Zero's mind. Familiar faces, nostalgic voices, but he had absolutely no idea how they are connected to each other. And then there was another snap, the images turned into clips. That was when Zero started seeing the story go together. Before he could think more, a deluge of emotions was planted into his brain, pain and sadness...And that was when he basically went mad.

"嗚嗚嗚噫(Aaah)!" He shouted into the sky. "I don't know, I don't know! Who's Reborn? Who's Iemitsu? Who's Gokudera? I don't know! What's this building in Italy! Who's this blonde guy! I don't know!" Then the massacre began once again.

Byakuran's video came to an end in silence. Zero's shouts still echoed in everybody's ears. They did know what to think. If this video is real (of course it is), could Zero be...

"Ow..." A weak voice came from the duffle bag. Zero woke up. As soon as he figured out nothing was covering his face, his mind went blank. And then, he felt that everybody was staring at him with different looks.

"Ha...ha...ha..." Zero tried to laugh a little with his stone face still on, "Can mina-sama tell me what's going on?"

* * *

><p>Death's game was as violent and bloody as Sawada Tsunayoshi expected. His mind grew automatic while slaughtering. He fooled himself by saying all these people he slaughtered was already dead. Now his normal mode is while he was slaughtering, no longer while he was sleeping or eating. It was stunning what this game can do to one person. Sawada Tsunayoshi no longer knew how to smile happily, now he grins like he's a murder machine, or worse, a killing monster who cannot even stop.<p>

"Aaah!" Tsuna shouted into the sky as he killed one last person near him. He chopped off the man's head just for sure. A few days earlier while he was exiting the game for a break, a man whom Tsuna thought was dead poked a hole through his stomach. It costed him great pain to learn this lesson: always chop off one's head to make sure that they are dead. The Tsuna before would never do so. But considering this is, afterall, _Death's_ game, anything bad can happen. As Tsuna searched to find another target, he noticed that he was the only one left. He remained unmoving for a second absorbing the fact, then his eyes went off searching for Death.

"Wow, wow. Truely splendid." Death appeared from nowhere clapping his hands. "I thought at least three would be left. But only one! That was a surprise! You sure qualify to accept my gift in such a state. I thought you were special from the beginning, Sawada Tsunayoshi, Godfather of the Sicilian Mafia."

"I am no longer Sawada Tsunayoshi. I am nobody. Sawada Tsunayoshi would never kill that many before without killing himself due to his stupid innocense." Tsuna shook his head. "Death, since you will grant me the wish of being reborn, I beleive that I no longer can use that name of Sawada or that identity of a Godfather. History shall not repeat itself."

"True, I shall grant you a new identity which you can choose partly yourself. But please wait, I have an extra gift. It's an mandatory gift though, you have to accept it. Think of it as one of those 'Buy one get on free' in your local supermarkets." Death said with a small smirk, it did not sound good to Tsuna.

"What gift?" Tsuna asked as he raised an eyebrow. "How is it mandatory?"

"A Devil's power." Death said as he walked around Tsuna in a circle. "That would be what I will grant you. With that power, you can kill more than 10,000 people under one hour if you wish and not feel tired. With that power, you will have great luck and power. But once I give you that power, you are signing an contract with me, a contract saying that your soul would be erased from this universe once this new life end. So meaning, no more rebirth for you. Do you still want to accept my gift of giving you a new life? You can be reborn again without me interfering, but who knows how many years later and where. Your wish would be totally screwed up then."

"I choose to accept your gift." Tsuna said without hesitation, he did't even think about not being able to live again after this life. "No matter what consequence there would be, I choose to accept your gift."

"Give me your wishes." Death said slowly without removing his gaze from Tsuna. "Name, gender, place, family background, whatsoever."

"Name? Zero would be fine. Gender? Male please and thank you. Place, France would be great. Time, 12 years before the birth of Vongola. Family background, any family that has the power to move an army and owns an intelligence agency. Facial features, as close to the current me as possible." Tsuna said tilting his head. He figured these things out a long time ago. He had been thinking about this for a long time. All these factors would interfere with his plan.

"Is that so?" Death smiled a little as he took out his notepad. While flipping the many pages, Death asked Tsuna a short question. "I am very curious, why in the world did you chose the name of 'Zero'? That is truly an interesting and unique name!" Death exclaimed.

"Zero?" Tsuna repeated. Hesitating for a moment, Tsuna answered the question. "Because I own nothing. So Zero. I will never own anything that I can hold dear in my next life, so Zero would fit."

"What a lonely name." Death snickered, showing no compassion at all. "Well then, I think I have found a spot for such an existance." He stopped flipping his notepad.

"Please tell me abou it." Tsuna said politely.

"Zero Vendémiaire Salvo, birth is 12 years before the birth of Vongola. Family is a French Royal family name dthe Salvos. Your mother would be Japanese while your father the head of the Salvo family. There was no such person in history, but I can make you appear. You will contain the memories of Sawada Tsunayoshi since that will help with your life as a Salvo. " Death looked up at Tsuna for a second. "This life would be a life of burden and sins, do you wish to continue then?"

"Yes of course!" Tsuna said with a grin. "Why would I stop at this time?"

"The gift I would give you requires a seal, thus leaving a mark on your body. Where do you want me to leave it then? The eye? The face? Or the hands?" Death asked as if it was nothing. "The great power needs a seal you know."

"The eye would be good." Tsuna thought for a second. "An eyepatach would cover it easily."

After giving the seal to Tsuna, Death let out a clear laugh. He patted Tsuna on the shoulder and shouted into the sky.

"Now, the life of Zero Vendemiaire Salvo! Starts now!"

* * *

><p>"I think Zero-sama's in trouble." Ivan said looking at the sky from the garden of the Salvo Japan base<p>

"Why so?" Francisco asked with grin while pouring himself more Earl Grey.

"I don't know, I just think so." Ivan shook his head slowly.

* * *

><p>Inside the Vongola Meeting Room, Zero was forced onto a seat near Reborn with both of his hands tied. He didn't know what was going on, but the mentioning of the name 'Sawada Tsunayoshi' makes his head aches. He knew the name had something to do with the memory he sealed off hiself before he came to Vongola. But what! What about Sawada? Now Zero regrets sealing it off. He wanted to know what could bring him so much trouble.<p>

"So...Zero Vendetta Salvo," Byakuran said with a smirk. "Just who...just who are you?" His smile faded at the end of the sentence.

_A lie repeated one hundred times is the truth._


	10. Talk of Devil, and He Will Appear

**Chapter 9: Talk of Devil, and He Will Appear**

"Just who...who are you?" Byakuran ended his question with a weak sigh. There was no smile on his face which was uncommon for Byakuran. His gazes were fixed on Zero Salvo. All the guardians and Reborn got the same question in their minds, thus they were all eager to hear the truth from the person in question.

Our person in question today is, of course, Earl Zero V. Salvo, whatever the initial 'V' represents. Nobody present in the meeting room at this time knows that the person they just tied onto a chair was an Earl at this point of time. However, all of them suspected that Zero V. Salvo was the dead Vongola Decimo: Sawada Tsunayoshi. But our dear Zero sure didn't think so. His head was aching like hell, which was probably a bad sign, and pictures were popping up in his head from nowhere. Pictures with the Vongola Guardians in it. Why? Why!

"Hey!" Byakuran said after one minuted of pure silence with Zero staring at the floor. "Hey, Zero-Rin-chan! I am asking you a very serious question! Stop ignoring me!" Of course, no reaction came from Zero. He kept staring down at the ground, trying to make sense of the pictures and clips popping out inside his brain. They looked familiar to him, but unknown at the same time.

Zero knew the existence of a memory seal inside his brain. He put it there himself. He knew it had something to do with sealing away the uncertainty of his mission inside the Vongola family. But he didn't really care about that right now. He just wanted to get rid of the damn headache. However, at the same time, the not-so-sentimental part of Zero's brain was screaming at him, telling him to force the seal back into place. Now somehow, Byakuran and the top members of the Vongola family were questioning his identity, denying that he was who he is! All probably related to these memories sealed away.

"Geez." Zero's unfeeling voice was filled with fatigue, "Can't you guys just-"

"Just what!" All of a sudden, Gokudera grew emotional. He stood up from his seat ignoring Yamamoto's questioning gaze, "Jyuu...no, Zero-san, no...no, whoever you really are, it is an _very_ important piece of information to me!" He shouted at Zero. Zero flinched a little due to the suddenly broken silence. Now he had to deal with this loud voice while battling with those stupid things inside his brain. "You might be a member of an ally family who was sent here to guard us, you might be an enemy who is faking to be a friend, you might be just a normal assassin here to study the skills of the Vongola Guardians, you might be _whatever_! But for me, for **me**!" Gokudera exclaimed while walking around Zero in a circle, both of his arms stretched out. "For me, even if there's only 0.00001% of chance that you might clear my sins and forgive me once again for my wrongdoings, that you might smile at me and say 'Good job, Gokudera-kun.' one more time, that you might sit beside me and watch me play piano anew, that you might...that you might..." Gokudera's voice died down. His arms were no longer stretched out, and his paces became very slow. He body was trembling a little. "That you might be my dear Jyuudaime..." Tears trickled down his cheek. Gokudera Hayato, the prideful Storm Guardian of Vongola Decimo, fell to his knees in front of Zero.

"Gokudera..." Yamamoto stood up from his seat and pulled Gokudera back onto his feet. "Please restrain yourself from all those emotions. At least for now. Until we figure out who this person actually is." Though his was trying to not sound sentimental, Yamamoto's voice was clearly shaking, and his eyes were also a little red.

Zero was temporarily frozen for a second. This is the first time he saw Yamamoto go emotional. Any why in the world, why in the world does that 'Jyuudaime' sounds so damn nostalgic! _Why do it makes my head hurts harder! _Zero winced a little and let out a small "guh". That grabbed everyone's attention. including Gokudera whose tears just cooled away.

"'Guh'?" Hibari said raising an eyebrow. "'_Guh_'?" His expression was filled with surprise. He got no idea why in the world would callous Zero express pain at _this_ kind of situation. However, when he looked at Zero's expression, he understood that he was truly under pain. Zero's expression was twisted. When he was stab in the stomach in that video they just watch Zero didn't even flinch. _What's going on?_ Hibari thought.

"Uh...are you okay, Zero-kun?" Yamamoto said with concern. But no response came. When Yamamoto patted Zero on the shoulder ten seconds later, he realised that Zero just passed out.

"Huh?" Byakuran tilted his hand. "Why in the world-?" He jumped off his seat and touched Zero's forehead, it was as cold as ice. Some suspicions raised in Byakuran's mind. _Could it be that... _Something terrible appeared inside his mind. Byakuran then reached for Zero's neck to check his heartbeats to verify his thought, then his hand froze on the spot. Stunned, Byakuran's hand reached for Zero's wrist, same result. Still feeling incredulous, Byakuran's right hand went under Zero's heavy coat and stopped right above where the heart was still to be. Same result. Byakuran stood there unmoving trying to absorb this information.

Byakuran's action made Reborn's expression rigid. _Huh_? Reborn thought, _Huh? Why the hell in the world would the white marshmallow chicken try to...try to... _Reborn was clearly thinking the wrong way.

While Reborn was staring at Byakuran with a weird look, Byakuran shook his head slowly and said with a deep voice. "I think we just killed Zero Salvo."

"HUH?" That was the reaction of everybody in the room. However, after Byakuran told them that there was no heartbeat nor breathe, and Zero's skin was dead cold, all of the guardians decided that what Byakuran said might be the truth. Reborn went to check it for himself right after Byakuran gave his explanation. After he reached the same result, Reborn grabbed a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number quickly. After only two beebs, somebody answered the call.

"Hello, Ivan Salvo of the Salvo Assassination Committee. May I ask who's calling please?" Ivan answered the call. His voice was very gentle.

"Zero's dead. Come and pick him up." Reborn said as if it was no big deal, "I think we just killed him." Then he hanged up with a casual expression. Clapping his hands, Reborn jumped off his chair and declared to the Guardians. "Kids, prepare your weapons, the Salvo's gonna kill us."

* * *

><p>A heavy knock came from the front door of the Vongola Base. After two seconds, since nobody opened the door, Ivan melted open the door with his Storm Attribute flame. His expression was extremely serious, so was the faces of the five family members behind him. About thirty seconds after they disappeared into the Vongola Base under the heavy dust, Francisco walked into the dust with a huge grin on his face. From the speed of his paces, it seemed like he took it as an excursion. There was no trace of worry on his face.<p>

"Ha, I think they just found Zero-sama sleeping on the ground." Francisco said as he combed his hair with his right hand. "Oh well, there's no human being in this world who can kill Zero-sama. The only person who can take away the life of Zero-sama is Death himself."

At the end of the hallway, Ivan encountered the Guardians who got all of their weapons out. Keeping at his stone face, Ivan proceeded forward and asked in a dead serious tone: "Where's Zero-sama? We need to see him."

"Zero-_sama_?" A questioning look appeared on Gokudera's face as he repeated the words Ivan just said. Shaking his head, Gokudera bowed down slightly and walked aside. "Please follow me." He said quietly as he lead the way. Ivan tilted his head and followed. No violence was seen.

Around one minute after everybody was gone, Francisco arrived at this spot. He kept walking forward with that smile on his face. Suddenly, he stopped. Taking out a daggar, he called out into the hallway. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

No response came. After waiting thirty seconds, Francisco decided it was just a bad sixth sense when a shadow came from behind. Thanks to all those training Zero gave him, Francisco reacted quickly and ducked. As soon as he backed up, he heard a huge "BANG": the sound of human flesh hitting the cement ground.

Francisco's mind froze for a second. As he leaned down to check the man, his eyes were filled with surprise. Putting the daggar back into his coat(?), he threw the man onto his back.

"_A mon dieu_, Zero-sama." Francisco let out a bitter laugh. "How in the world did you get here?" After half a second, the two men disappeared under a ball of black fire: unknown attribute, unknown usage.

Around the same time, when Gokudera and the guardians found that the room which Zero was supposed to be in was empty, all of their minds went blank. However, when Ivan heard the news, he just shrugged and left without leaving a comment or an explanation. His face seemed happier than before somehow, not so serious anymore.

"Hey hey!" Sasagawa called out, "Salvo, you!" When all six men turned their heads and stared at Sasagawa, Sasagawa gulped and and shivered a little. "Uh, I mean the leader, uh, Ivan Salvo! Hey you, why did you not kill us? We killed your comrade and then we lost him!"

Ivan smiled and shook his head. "Nah, Zero-sama's not dead. I guess he's probably back drinking tea with Francisco right now." He laughed out slightly when he saw the shocked face of the guardians. "As for the 'no heartbeat' which I guess you guys discovered, don't be surprised. Zero-sama's always like that in case you haven't noticed yet. I don't know if Zero-sama would be back here with you Vongolas again, but if he's here again, I would highly suggest that you people treat highly of him. Or..." Ivan slashed a hand threw the air. After an awkward silence, Ivan smiled once again and disappeared along with the five people under a ball of black fire: unknown attribute, unknown usage.

"Uh huh." Yamamoto nodded slowly after one minuted of pure silence. "Somebody explain to be what just happened please!"

* * *

><p>As Ivan walked along a walkway in the garden two hours after he left the Vongola Base trying to find Francisco, he saw Zero sitting on a bench staring at a white rose which he held in the hands. Zero wasn't wearing his cloak, but a black suit with thin white stripes. The greyish shirt was unbuttoned on the top since there was no tie. The dark brown square pattern hat Zero was wearing matched his hair colour nicely. The plain pirate-like eyepatch was also replaced by a black leather patch with a cote of arms sew in golden lines. As soon as Ivan noticed Zero, he fastened his pace and kneeled down infront of Zero who still had his gaze focused on the flower. "Earl Zero-sama, welcome home." He said softly.<p>

"Thank you very much." Zero replied in a pleasantly subdued manner. However, he was still looking at the rose. "I am home, Ivan." Tilting his head slightly with a sigh, Zero murmured to Ivan. "Ah, Ivan, do you consider me a human wonder? A man who could live without the moving of heart, such a wonder, the eighth wonder of the world! Or should I say a monster?" Zero laughed drily.

"No...No! Zero-sama's not a monster! Zero-sama's the kindest person who I have ever met! For me, it's an honour to stay along side you!" Ivan replied quickly. His face turned red due to either excitement or shyness. He looked completely different from that cold person inside the Vongola base two hours ealier, but more like a high school student facing his first love.

"Is that so? Haha, you are always so interesting, Ivan." Zero laughed out loudly, his mouth turned into a giant grin. Shaking his head slightly, Zero maintained his pleasant mood and gleeful smile. "Thanks then, for boosting my confidence, making me think that I am but another commoner, but..." Zero stopped for a moment as he threw the rose into the air. "My life will, like this rose, be stopped abruptly at sometime this year." Slowly, Zero's grin grew larger. "Thank god, within this year! Finally!"

"Zero-sama...?" Ivan felt strange for a second. _Zero-sama's memories are back...so the seal..._ Ivan was a little confused for a second. _So the seal broke! Zero-sama now remembers all those stuffs that he didn't want to remember ealier! _

"Yes, Ivan, the seal broke." Zero stood up slowly and smiled. "It was a surprise to me after I remembered everything that I lived with the Guardians of Vongola for so long without killing them. The way they treated me was just like the way they treated Sawada Tsunayoshi." Zero muttered, though he knew that was not really the truth. "They came to suspect my identity when my face was revealed, however thanks to my screwed up brain, I escaped them by passing out." Zero laughed and bent his knees in front of Ivan. "I wonder what should our next step be, Ivan. I wonder."

"Isn't there the Script?" Ivan said slowly. "The Script which led us here, which led Zero-sama here, which-"

"-will declare my death within this year." Zero interrupted along with a short laugh. "Yes, thank you for reminding me, _the Script_."

Ivan shook his head slightly and said quickly. "No! Zero-sama will not die! If you die, Francisco and I will...the rest of the Salvo family will...!" Ivan couldn't imagine what will happen. But then he realised something Zero just said was strange. "Zero-sama," he inquired. "How could the Script tell you when will you die?"

"Ah, I didn't tell you?" Zero was a little surprised when he heard the question. "The Script is a timeline of what I should do in order to achieve my goal. It has a 'due date' for every project. Like the one we just accomplished: ally with the Vongolas. It is due next week. Since we accomplished it on time, it's no problem. But if we are still not ally with Vongola by next week, let's say, then I would, by 99% of chance, be killed."

"Huh?" Ivan was confused for a second.

"By all means, I really didn't tell you guys such important thing?" Zero sighed. "The Script was given to me by the same person who gave me this seal." Zero said while pointing at his left eye. "It was given by Death."

* * *

><p>"I don't want to register you as my son." Earl Salvo grumbled as he stared at the boy who was kneeling in front of him. "You have the Devil's Eye and your mother died giving birth to you. Bad signs, I don't like them. But since you are my only heir, I have no other choices."<p>

"I understand, father-sama." Zero, age 11, replied calmly. No anger was detected though his father just denied that he liked his only son. "So my wish...?"

"It will be granted." Earl Salvo grunted as he rolled his eyes. "It _has_ to be granted. If I don't grant such a wish from my only son, what will the other royals say!" Without even looking at Zero, the Earl stood up and quickly left the room, his bored expression showed others his true thought of Zero: a bothersome sin, something extra no need to waste his time on.

As soon as the Earl left, Francisco rushed into the room from an unnoticeable side door. "Zero! Zero!" He called out Zero's name loudly in badly pronounced Japanese. "How did it go?"

"Nicely." Zero replied in the same language with a small grin. "He agreed."

"Earl-sama agreed?" Ivan who just rushed into the room asked with a surprised look. "He gave Zero-sama the permission to...?"

"Yes." Zero stood up from the floor, patting the dusts on his left knee. "The Earl (attention: not 'my father') agreed. From today on, I will have the power to give orders to the intelligence agency of the Salvo family."

Francisco stood still for a second. Then he ran forward and gave Zero a huge hug. "Awesome! You are always the best at talking the Earl into giving permission for us to do something dangerous! I love you, Zero-sama!"

Zero blushed at the last sentence. Unnoticeably he backed away from Francisco's hug. "Franc, if you don't know how to use a word properly in Japanese, please use French. The sentence you just said, Franc, it means..."

"I know! _Je t'aime_, right?" Francisco called out loudly. The mentioning of 'i love you' made Ivan flinched a little since he had always been a shy child. "I will always love Zero and follow Zero everywhere!"

"Cough." Zero shook his head with a small grin. "Cough. With the permission from the Earl, we can now move onto Step2."

"What is it! What is it?" Francisco jumped while giving Ivan a huge hug.

"Now, we shall use the intelligence agency to detroy the Earl's power in France from within, and then, we shall-"

"Kill him."

_The person who can hurt you the deepest would always be the person's closest to you._


	11. Do You Believe in Death?

**Chapter 10: Do You Believe in Death?**

"Benoit, Jaques, do you understand my order?" Zero curled his fringes with a finger as he asked the two men kneeling in front of him in sobriety. Francisco and Ivan were standing behind Zero, both of them looking at the men with deathly stares.

"Yes, Zero-sama!" The two men, Benoit and Jaques, answered in unison. They totally ignored Francisco and Ivan's stares since they were very used to it: whenever somebody gets less than six meters away from Zero, they would look at them like that. Behind them, many of the Salvo family members gave Francisco and Ivan the name of "Boss Complex".

"This would be the last order I give you guys with the name as Zero V. Salvo, the next boss of the Salvo Royals then." Zero suddenly stood up from seat. He walked around the table and patted the two men on their shoulder. Even though he was only fourteen, his eyes was filled such ambitions Benoit and Jaques, two very successful assassins, would admire. "If you succeed - of course you will succeed - the next time I see you I will be the leader of the Salvo Family."

After the two men exited. Francisco walked towards Zero with a worried look on his face. Ivan went to the window and opened the curtain. The moon already arose. "Zero-san, are you sure about the order you just gave out? Are you absolutely sure? You already have no mother, if you do so..." There was an awkward silence.

"That man never regarded me as his son, never even once." Zero said with a bitter laugh as he walked toward the window. "He simply treated me as a tool, or maybe just for show. To show that he's a man with a heir. And plus, I will never regret what I do, and I believe I will never make any mistake at this point."

"Zero-sama." Ivan called out silently. "I believe in you, Zero-sama."

"I know, I know." Zero smiled gently and raised his head in order to look at the moon. Out of nowhere, Zero started talking. As if to himself, but at the same time, like to an old friend.

"Lambo said once that the moon looked like a train. I laughed really hard because I sense no difference. The reason he gave me was that they are both round: the moon is, of course, round once a month, and the wheel of a train can look like a perfect circle once it starts to go. I understand that a little now, why the train and the moon are similar."

"How?" Francisco asked. Both he and Ivan are used to this kind of random self talk with mentioning of unfamiliar names.

"Well, they are both objects that you share with others, right?" Zero turned at them and smiled. Under the moonlight, his body seemed extra lonely, as if he could disappear any time. "You share the same moon with you friend, you sit under the same sky, look at the same moon, share the same happiness. On the train, you share the same trip, you share the same talks, right?"

"But non of lasts forever. The moon will always change, crescent or round, you will never be able to see it the same as before. As for the train, it will always keep going, keep going forward. It will never turn back even though it is running on a road of no-return."

"I always feel like a train. Before, I was a train with driver and passengers. The driver was my teacher, and the passengers were my friends. I was a happy train back then, heading towards unknown goals with their supports and guidances. But then, the train was discarded. The train turned from a highly decorated one to a torned one. It kept going without the driver though. There was no goal. No goal. Even though it say there is a goal. Ha, where would the train go to? Lost forever, I say." Zero let out a short laugh.

"No, no, Zero-sama." Ivan said slowly with a grin. "The train will not be lost. It will be fine. It already intersected with two other trains who are willing to guide it and stay by its side."

"Even though those two other trains might be destroyed at the end?" Zero said.

"Even if it was destroyed, these two trains would be destroyed happily." Francisco answered in a serious tone. "Very happily, because before they are destroyed, they know that the train the accompanied would be never lost."

* * *

><p>Reborn picked up the phone and dialed a number quickly. It was six in the morning, and usually, the last thing one would do is calling somebody you dislike at six in the morning.<p>

"Byakuran, any news from the Salvos?" Reborn asked as he climbed out of his bed and stretched. He barely slept last night. He spent the whole night thinking about the problem with Zero. Why in the world does has the same face as Tsuna? Its amazing what one can think of in a night's time. Reborn came up with all sorts of explanations. Including the one that Zero is Tsuna, but how does that work anyway?

"No, not really." Byakuran answered quietly. He didn't really hear Reborn's question, his gaze was fixed on a 10-page report which Irie just sent him. He flipped over it roughly twenty minutes ago and froze right on the spot. "No, nothing at all." Byakuran added.

"Is that so?" Reborn said slowly. Then he quickly hanged up the phone. Taking out a notebook, he flipped through the pages to find a number. As soon as he found it, he dialed it on the phone. He's calling the Salvo family, directly to Zero's room.

Byakuran's hand went loose as soon as he put the phone back. The 10 page report scattered all over the floor. Gradually, Byakuran sat back onto his bed and let out a long sigh. "**Checkmate**, is it? Really." He murmured to himself with a lost look on his face. "What a checkmate, Salvos, what a checkmate." _(does mina-san remember Tsuna's epitaph, also the Salvo official signature? Something wicked this way comes~~~)_

* * *

><p>Zero was reading a novel when the phone call from Reborn came. Putting the book aside, he reached for the ringing phone. <em>Who would be calling me at this time of the day?<em> Zero thought. He knew it would not be Francisco nor Ivan since their rooms were just beside his. _The Vongolas_? Zero quickly denied that since he imagined nobody in the Vongola family knew his room phone number. At that thought, he picked up the phone.

"Hello, Zero Salvo here. May I ask who am I speaking to?" Zero said to the phone. Silence came. Since he got no response under 7 seconds, he said again. "May I interpret this as a prank call?"

"Zero, huh." A voice came from the opposite side of the phone. Zero quickly identified this voice as Reborn: in the state of curiosity. _This is bad._ Zero thought. _What is he curious about? _"You are not sleeping?"

"No, Reborn-dono." Zero tried to sound as emotionless as possible, so Reborn cannot sense that the seal was broken. "I am not sleeping."

"That's great, then." Reborn coughed a little, trying to continue the conversation normally. Before he spoke, Reborn detected something familiar: the way Zero answered the phone was exactly like what Sawada Tsunayoshi used to do. "So, Zero. Do you have any connections with Sawada Tsunayoshi?" He asked abruptly.

"No." Zero responded very quickly.

"Are you sure?" Reborn pushed on.

"I am very sure, Reborn-dono." Zero said, trying to remain calm.

"Okay then." Reborn stopped for a second as he tries to find something which will bring benefit to the Vongolas. "Zero, I want you to come to the Vongola Headquarters today at noon sharp. We need to discuss something important."

"I believe that is possible." Zero thought for a moment. _I need to tell Franc and Ivan_. He made a mental note. _Tell them to prepare me with some weapons._

"Great, see you then." Reborn said and then hanged up the phone. Leaving Zero wondering what Reborn's up to with the beeping sound of the phone.

* * *

><p>Zero Salvo appeared at the front door of the Vongola Headquarters around 11:40. He ditched his cloak since the Vongolas already knew what he looks like. At this time, he was wearing a t-shirt with a black vest and tattered black jeans. Except the fancy black eyepatch he was wearing, Zero, for once, actually looked like a normal college student. Nodding slightly at the guard, he walked into the HQ casually. However, the guards decided not to let him in. They stopped him fiercely by grabbing his two arms. "Unauthorised personelle is not supposed to enter this area, didn't you see the sign?" One of the guard said in fury.<p>

"Oh." Zero said in surprise. Then he remembered that the guards usually know him as 'the guy in the cloak'. This should be the first time that they saw him like this. Putting on a cold face, Zero ducked away from the guards simply. Lighting the black fire on his right hand, Zero tilted his head. "'Unauthorised personelle', huh? Do I look like one of those louts?"

The guards quickly recognised Zero's emotionless tone and strange fire. They all bowed down at him quickly and moved back to their place. Zero put down his fire and continued his journey into the HQ, sensing that the surveillance camera was moving with him.

True, Hibari and Sasagawa along with Yamamoto was watching Zero's actions ever since he encountered the guards. Hibari's eyes flashed as soon as he saw Zero's face; Sasagawa's body went numb at the same sight; and Yamamoto turned away from the screen for one minute. They are all still afraid of seeing that face. Even though they know it does not belong to Sawada Tsunayoshi, it still pained them.

"Reborn-dono, where are you?" Zero shouted as soon as he pushed open the doors of the HQ. Reborn did not tell him where to go, thus he decided just to remain here in the main hall. As soon as the echos of his voice died away, Byakuran appeared at the end of the hallway. His expression was extremely complex. which confounded Zero a little. _Is this the same Byakuran I saw yesterday?_ Byakuran nodded at Zero slightly and said. "This way, follow me." Then he turned his head away from Zero, as if that face of Zero disgusts him.

Byakuran opened a trap door behind a oil paint, Zero recognised that place as the secret meeting room where he used to held top-secret one-on-one meetings. Raising is eyebrows, Zero walked inside. Byakuran closed the door and walked in after him, his hands tightening around the fake 10-page report he asked Irie to forge just two hours ago.

"Reborn-dono." Zero bowed slightly at Reborn as he sat down. He emotions were hidden so well that nobody could detect inside his mind right now, Zero has a great urge to one, punch Reborn in the face; two, cry right in front of Reborn.

"Zero." Reborn nodded and acknowledged Zero's presence. He took out a file from a drawer. It was the same report that Byakuran has in his hands. "I will move onto the topic quickly." He said as he passed the report to Zero. Zero quickly picked it up and started reading. His body flinched subtly when he noticed the title.

"So, Zero, I called you here today to discuss something very important." Reborn said slowly. "You shall pass this to Francisco Salvo when you get back."

"We, the Vongolas, want your help to find and terminate the family which killed Vongola Decimo."

Zero arrived back at the Salvo family around nine at night. Both Francisco and Ivan rushed out to greet them. Both were worried to their deaths since Zero had not yet return at such a late hour before.

* * *

><p>"What happened, Zero?" Francisco asked as he noticed Zero's wild expression. "Something bad?"<p>

Zero said nothing, but he handed the report to Francisco. Patting both men on the shoulder, he walked slowly back to his room without any words.

As soon as he locked the door behind him, Zero started laughing hysterically. He couldn't help it, he just wanted to laugh, laugh like this was his last day in the world, like Death would come and get his soul the next second. He laughed like that for an entire 5 minutes until he finally collapsed onto his bed. Sinking his head into the pillow, Zero started crying silently with a ghastly smile.

"Hee hee hee," Zero cried. "Hee, hee, hee! What a fail, Vongola, what a fail!"

"I thought at least from the letters Sawada Tsunayoshi left you, you guys could see the truth! You still hadn't figured out? Wow, hee, hee, hee..."

"You still hadn't see that it was Sawada Tsunayoshi who killed _himself_, hee, hee, hee!"


	12. Yes I Do, Of Course I Do

**Please, if mina-sama think they noticed something interesting by doing a word game, **_**don't tell!**_** Please enjoy the story!**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11: Yes I Do, Of Couse I Do<strong>

Sawada Tsunayoshi received the letter exactly one month before that unbeatable storm arrived.

It was a regular morning when Gokudera knocked exactly three times on that extremely heavy office door before he pushed it open. Tsuna was, of course, reading a history book on his desk at the moment. As soon as he realised Gokudera was present, he closed the book quickly and gave Gokudera a small nod. "Good morning, Gokudera-kun." He said with a grin. "What brought you here? I though we have a meeting this afternoon."

"Yes, I was notified." Gokudera said. Then he took out a letter from his folder and placed it right in front of Tsuna. A white envelope at first look, not very special. On the front there was the name of Vongola Decimo written in unidentifiable cursive letters. "However, I was requested by a guard to send this letter to you as soon as possible. He said that an unknown individual handed him the letter half an hour after sunrise."

"Unknown individual?" Tsuna said as he regarded his name written in handwriting: evidently not from somebody he knew. "Do we have the video recording, or at least a picture snap of him from the surveillance camera?"

"Sorry, Jyuudaime, we do not obtain those information. The surveillance camera of that area was disabled just five minutes before the man supposedly appeared. I strongly suggest Jyuudaime NOT opening the letter since we do not know what was put inside by that mysterious individual." Gokudera raised his voice slightly as he saw Tsuna picking up the letter and opening it.

"It should be alright, Gokudera-kun." Tsuna said slowly as he once again tried to identify the handwriting. "It's just a letter, weighs no more than 10g, what could be inside? Deadly virus that could kill Vongola Decimo? I will be alright." He let out a short laugh and bowed slightly to Gokudera: a sign to order him to leave. "Thank you very much for bringing me this letter! See you in the afternoon, then."

Tsuna waited until Gokudera's footsteps were totally out of the audible range. Then he reopened the door to make sure nobody was around, and hanged a "No Disturbance" sign outside the door. Quickly, he shut off the surveillance camera inside his room and closed the curtain. Tsuna let out a long sigh as he stretched his jacket. Coughing a few time, he called out to the seemingly empty room. "You may come out now, sir."

A few seconds later, a man stepped out of the shadow from the corner of his office. He was around the age of 30, but his sinister smile made him look much younger. His slender yet tall statue made him easy to be spotted in a crowd. His hair had the colour of hazel, mixed with highlights of dark brown and grey. The coat he was wearing was totally black, so was his pants, but his shirt was in dark red. However, what attracted Tsuna's attention the most was his pupils which were in the colour of bright red, or at least it seemed.

"'Sir'," the man said sarcastically, "You chose to call me 'sir', what an interesting choice of wording, Sawada Tsunayoshi." He let out a sharp laugh.

"I do not know your name nor your identity, of couse not your personality." Tsuna replied calmly. "Calling you 'gentleman' might be untrue, so would 'looter'. At this point, the only word I could use would be 'sir'. Or do you prefer me to call you 'madam'?" Tsuna grinned.

The man did not reply. After a few seconds of silence, the man answered with a mysterious smile. "No, that would be untrue. My name is Edda Dogth. You may call me 'Edda', as my friend would call me. Sounds similar to _daddy_, right?"

"No, not really." Tsuna said in honesty. _Friends?_ Tsuna thought, _as _friends_?_ "It is a weird name though, both first and last."

"Yes, a weird last name, I understand. Sound like the plural of certain lowly and unpleasant spieces. But I like the name 'Edda' quite a lot." Edda Dogth answered slowly, keeping his sinister grin. "'_The Eddas'_ are the chief source of knowledge of the Scandinavian mythologies and language. The mythologies are quite intriguing to read."

"I did not know that, thank you for telling me that." Tsuna said as he tried to search any information regarding Scandinavia from his brain. Then he remembered it was an extremely multicultural peninsula in NW Europe, occupied by Norway and Sweden. Their culture is a mixture of the traditions of all neighbouring countries. "Anyways, I did not understand why would you bother writing a letter if you were going to come here to visit on you own? Isn't that a lot of work?"

"Just in case my plan was interfered. I didn't plan on going through from the front door, you know." Edda said.

"You jumped in from my window around seventy seconds before Gokudera appeared." Tsuna shook his head slightly. Coughing a little, Tsuna moved onto the next topic with a look of sobriety. "Now, please, Mr. Edda, why are you here today?"

"To make _friends_, of course!" Edda said as if it was extremely obvious. "Also to give you guys some information regarding a new rival family that might cause you danger. And to make a bet.

"Fine." Tsuna said while taking out some notepaper and pen. "Which family? Can you please tell me the name of them, please? And what bet? Please tell me that at the same time so I can decided whether or not I should participate in such a bet."

"Oh no, you don't decided." Edda smirked. "Of course you will participate in the bet! Or I might just watch and see Vongola destroyed by that family! With me here, you at least have a chance of surviving!"

"Which family?" Tsuna urged on. "I don't know any family that obtain such power! Please, Edda-san, tell me the name!"

"Oh cool cool," Edda, seemingly calm, said at a slowly pace. "I shall tell you the family name, then. You should be familiar with it."

"Salvo, _Salvo Assassination Committee_. Once part of the French Royals, but split up with the court right before the start of the French Revolution. Turned into a crime family then." Edda said. "I believe they have **more** than enough power to terminate the Vongola."

Tsuna tried to recall the name from his head, but he could only remember that it was from Primo's era. "What about the bet then?"

"If they lost, I die. If they won, all of your guardians will be killed, also your fellow comrades."

"Or you have the choice of only you _yourself_ dying while _all_ others live."

Zero walked into the Vongola base at a easy pace. Wearing like a true adolescent, he took off his sunglasses when he met the Guards' stare and gave out a small nod. It was sunny day, thus Zero was feeling unbelievably happy. However, he had to remain emotionless all the time in front of the Vongolas, in case they noticed something that might bring trouble upon his head. Zero was greeted by Byakuran at the front door.

"Zero Rin-chan." Byakuran let out a grin, but Zero thought that the grin was extremely uneasy. Trying to read his mind, Zero searched for anything of his interest within Byakuran's current thoughts. But the only thing that he found was the sentence 'oh, the Salvo's here, very interesting'. Shaking off the suspicion, Zero bowed slightly but remained silent. "Please follow me to the office." Byakuran said and headed off without saying an extra word: how very unlike Byakuran.

Byakuran walked two times quicker than his normal pace. His mind was near the moment of destruction (?) when he saw Zero's face. _If Sho-chan's report is absolutely correct_, Byakuran thought, _then the Salvos definitely has some deep secret within their organisation, something which they had been hiding all along._ Moving his gaze to Zero, Byakuran's train of thoughts moved to another part of Irie's report._ And this man walking behind me right now, must be the mastermind of all the events that had happened in the past. He must be the true boss of the Salvos_. However at the same time, Byakuran knew that something about his theory did not make any sense. According to Sawada Tsunayoshi's last few diary entries fragment, the mastermind's name was something along the lines of 'Ed God' or 'Andy Dough'. And the physical description did not match at all. But Zero Salvo is the only candidate of suspicion in Byakuran's view right now. Nobody within Byakuran and Irie's range of knowledge from the Salvo family other than Zero had enough intelligence and power to ruin the Vongola family to _that degree. _

Byakuran pushed open the meeting room door and let Zero in. However, Zero totally ignored the existence of Byakuran at this point and had his gaze totally fixed on the one person sitting at the chair at the end, his expression shocked, even a little frightened.

Reborn noticed Zero's entry. Tilting his head, Reborn jumped off his chair and walked towards Zero. "Zero Salvo, thanks for joining us. We have a guest with us today, probably somebody you don't know of. Should I introduce you his name?"

Zero did not answer the question, he completely ignored the existence of everybody else except the guest. His lips moved yet made out no sound. His eyes remained widened. The usual coldness was no where to be seen, but instead, his face looked frightened, even furtive. For a second, Byakuran thought he was looking at the Vongola Decimo from a few years ago.

"Nice to meet you, Zero V. Salvo." The guest stood up and approached Zero slowly. "I heard you are an ambassador from the Salvo Assassination Committee. How very nice! Do you know my name?" He asked while looking at Reborn. Zero's lips moved again but made no sound at all. The guest smiled and moved closer to Zero, his cheek beside Zero's. "Speak louder." He said gently.

"..." Zero could not move now, his body was completely frozen.

"Anyways," The guest patted Zero on the shoulder and headed back his seat. "I'll tell you my name now, just before the meeting start."

"My name is Eddy Dogth, and I am a representative from the Vongola intelligence section. Nice to meet you, Salvo-san."

The meeting began quickly. Zero regained his usual cool expression, but even Yamamoto noticed that his mood had gone strange. They went on talking about subtle informations (in Zero's point of view) without making any true progress. Two hours after the meeting had started, Byakuran went forward and made a suggestion. "Let's start with checking some suspicious families, to see if they have anything to hide from us."

Eddy Dogth gave out a smile and nodded, his expression somehow sinister. "Great idea, Gesso-san. I have a suggestion for that!"

"Name your suggestion." Reborn said cooly.

"Huh, should I say it or not." Eddy gazed temporarily at Zero for a second, but Zero's mind was clearly on the moon. Shaking his head, Eddy proceeded with his suggestion. "How about the Salvo Assassination Committee? I have all the evidence against them you know."

Before his sentence even finished, Zero stood up all of a sudden and said in an extremely fierce tone, his hand already at the place where he hid one of his weapons. "If you dare." Zero stared at Eddy. "If you dare do so, I will kill you right now."


	13. Living Death

**This is Miko-chan. I think I know how this story will end now. Huh...well, how's mina-san's mental endurance, then? Please tell me about it since that might affect how the story will go. Thanks!**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12: Living Death<strong>

"_Search the Salvos?_" Reborn said in disbelief with his eyes focused in Zero who just bursted. "Why the Salvos? I do not believe that we current holds any evidence against one of our most trustworthy ally, especially when I trust them to be present that such a secretive meeting, Edda."

"No, no, Reborn-san." Edda shook his head with great force as if he was telling stories to a group of toddlers. "I believe we have all the reasons _not_ to trust them." His tone was gentle, but at the same time frightening. "As a member of Vongola, I found the death of Vongola Decimo a great tragedy and sworn to myself that I must find the true killer of Vongola Decimo. I will definitely not turn against somebody who's currently helping me achieve my goal without enough evidence." Edda nodded at Zero, whose expression though better than before, was still a little wild.

"Say it." Byakuran suddenly interrupted with a satisfied smile. _Sho-chan's report was correct after all,_ he thought to himself, the Salvos _did_ have something to do with the affair. "What reasons do you hold? Tell us about it." Right beside him, Zero's face suddenly turned pale. Byakuran concluded that Zero must had something horrific to hide.

Edda took out a piece of paper from his folder and placed it on the middle of the meeting table. "Take a look at this," He said. "A piece of paper from what was left of Decimo-sama's diary. Uncovered by one of my subordinate from the fireplace in Decimo's office the day he was killed." He stopped and eyed for Reborn to grab the paper, Reborn ignored him. Edda let out a bitter grin and continued. "Well then, if you don't want to read it. I will just tell you about the content of this very page then."

"Though eighty percent of this page was burnt, we were able to figure out some words from this piece of evidence. Within the thirty words which we were able to recognise, five of them are "_Salvo_", or "_SAC_" that stands for '_Salvo Assassination Committee_'." Edda noticed Zero's face going paler than ever and smiled in satisfaction. Giving Zero a wink, he continued. "In addition to that, only one month before the incident happened the Salvo Committee entered our radar. And only after the incident happened did the size of the Salvo Family increase and its name became more well known. There's also one thing that could be considered coincidence. But it was the day after the incident occurred that Francisco Salvo first showed his face in public. Extremely suspicious, since nobody had ever seen him before."

Edda let out a long sigh as he waited for everyone to absorb the information. Byakuran's face was suddenly lightened and filled with joy while Zero's was the opposite. Though no expression was clearly shown, the colour of his face was, well, worse than a ghost's. After one minute of silence, before anyone could even react, Zero suddenly stood up and started walking outside at a fast pace.

"Please come to our Headquarters tomorrow and do your investigation." He stopped for a second at the exit and said coldly. But just before he could step out, Hibari Kyouya appeared in front of him with a crooked smile.

"Awo, what if you are going back to tell out friends to hide the evidence? Stay here." Then he hit Zero right on the neck. Maybe due to shock or what, Zero didn't even fight back. Under Hibari's attack, he collapsed to the ground. Hibari didn't bother catching his body. But the second Zero's body hit the floor, doubt and sadness went across Hibari's eyes. But that was just for a second, not even Edda noticed it.

* * *

><p>"Ahh!" Francisco shouted into his pillow as Ivan took away his tea cup in clear unwillingness. "When will Zero-san come back~~~It's already five in the evening~~~" He dragged his voice as long as he could until he went out of air. Then he threw the pillow upwards to the ceiling. It fell down a few seconds later and hit him on the head. "Ow!" Francisco exclaimed in dismay.<p>

Ivan was trying hard not to laugh. Though usually shy, Ivan could be very enthusiastic at time. But Francisco's expression was way too funny. Ivan couldn't control himself anymore and bursted into laughter. At the same time, the tea cup fell to the ground and broke into pieces.

"Guh! Why are you laughing?" Francisco complained loudly, but his attention was focused on the broken tea cup. "Oh well, whatever. But Ivan, do you know?"

"Know what?" Ivan asked, trying to hold a staid face.

"A broken tea cup or tea pot is a bad omen." Francisco said in sobriety. "I mean it. Could it be that...Zero-san's still not back yet...could it be that..." He failed to continue.

"...that something happened to Zero-sama?" Ivan finished the sentence for him.

"Anyways." Francisco sighed a little. "Zero-san left us something, right? If that object turns from green to red, that means we must take certain actions." Francisco said as he took out a small bouncy ball, currently in the colour of green. "Zero-san can activate this just by thinking about it."

"True." Ivan said. "It's still green." But as soon as he finished the sentence, the colour of the ball turned into bright red.

"Aha!" Francisco shouted eagerly. "Action time! Let's go hide the Script somewhere! Somewhere the Vongolas definitely could not even think of! Now, where should that place be? Any ideas, Ivan-chan?"

* * *

><p>"Now, now, Vongola Decimo-sama? Would you spare sometime to play a game of chess with me?" Edda said with a strange smile. "I know you might be busy, but please, just one game. I am very bored, please make me entertained."<p>

Sawada Tsunayoshi looked up from the novel he was reading. Thinking that he d'better not offend this mysterious man, Tsuna stood up from the sofa and nodded gently. "What kind of chess, Edda-san? Western Chess or the Chinese Go? Or chess of some other sort?"

"Well then." Edda seemed to have grinned. "I think Western Chess will do, since that is the type which I usually play with my, well, _friends_. Thus thus the one I am most skilled at."

Tsuna shivered a little at Edda's mentioning of 'friends'. The way Edda said it made that word's definition sounds more like "prey". Tsuna walked towards a storage drawer and took out a small archaic box containing his set of Western Chess: a birthday gift from someone when he was five. Slowly, he set the chess up on a coffee table in front of Edda, who clearly had no intention of moving.

"Ah, how plain!" Edda said loudly when he saw the set of chess. "I imagined that Vongola Decimo would have a set made out of gold!" He exclaimed in disappointment. Though Tsuna wanted to say something back, he saw the ghastly grin on Edda's face and decided not to say a word. After setting it up, he sat down opposite of Edda and motioned him to start.

Of course, Edda started first. He made his move, then Tsuna made his. Both players considered each of their actions carefully. But somehow, from the look on Edda's face and his movements, he seemed have found the game quite simple and relaxing. That shocked Tsuna, since even Reborn lost numerous time playing with him. But Edda was indeed better than Tsuna at this game of Western chess. Only twenty minutes after the game started, Edda declared 'checkmate' on Tsuna.

Tsuna stared at the position which his king was at. Indeed, no place to move. It was a checkmate. He just lost the game. Sighing, he said slowly to Edda. "Edda-san, you have won the game. The game have ended."

Edda suddenly let out a loud laugh, scaring Tsuna a little. "Oh yes, I did checkmate you, I have won the game! But you are wrong, Vongola Decimo-sama, you are very wrong about that statement. The game have not ended yet, it will never end you know. As long as your soul exists and mine too, this game will never end."

"Why so?" Tsuna asked. He started feeling a little uncomfortable. _What Edda said was a little strange,_ Tsuna thought. _Soul? Soul? _

"Because as long as your soul exists, I can always play you, and you can always play me. Who knows who's the final winner?" Edda declared cheerfully. "Just an endless cycle, life I mean. How boring-" He dragged the last syllable as song as he could. Tsuna remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"Well then, Vongola Decimo-sama, what will you think if I end that cycle then?" Edda lowered his voice. "Wouldn't that be very entertaining to do? Don't you think so? Vongola Decimo-sama?"

"Uh-huh." Tsuna tried to pass the question, but Edda clearly needed an answer from him, so he just agreed.

Edda's eyes were suddenly filled with excitement. "Ha! Well then, Vongola Decimo, I will do just that then. For you! _Only_ for _you_!"

* * *

><p>Hibari Kyouya sure hit hard enough. Even when the Vongolas decided to depart the next morning to conduct the surprise search on the Salvos, Zero didn't wake up. But just to make sure things goes smoothly without any mistakes, Reborn ordered Hibari to stay right beside Zero's bed and ensure Zero to not do anything 'negative' to Vongola. Though highly unwilling, Hibari agreed at last.<p>

One hour after Reborn and companies departed, Zero opened his eyes. Though technically awake, his mind was clearly still all fogged up. Zero turned his head a little and noticed Hibari, who at the time, was feeding his pet bird Hibadou. He didn't really noticed that Zero had wake up.

"Hiba...Hibari-...Hibari-san..." Zero murmured quietly, his tone a little frightened. He surly forgot his identity, and thought it was back when he was still in school, in his _previous_ life. "Good morning, Hibari-san, please spare my life today." He said in a dreamy voice. "I wore my uniform today, please..."

Hibari's eyes widened as he heard Zero. The way Zero said the sentence was exactly the same way _that man_ used to say it! Hibari suddenly forgot all about feeding Hibadou, he stood up and rushed to Zero, whose mind was still quite foggy and unclear.

"Hibari-san!" Zero said as if he was really scared. "I told you! I wore my uniform today!"

In Hibari's eyes, for a moment, the begging look of_ that man_ coincided with Zero's face. His knees suddenly buckled, and he fell to the floor, making a huge 'thud". That finally made Zero's mind wake up. Zero suddenly sat up with a extremely clear mind and started at Hibari in surprise. "Cloud Guardian-sama...?" Zero said in a monotonous voice, his face remained emotionless.

"You..." Hibari's hand reached for Zero face. Zero, somehow, could not make himself to avoid it. Hibari touched Zero's cheek gently and spoke in a terribly weak voice. "You...are you in _any_ way related to the herbi-, no, the _late_ Vongola Decimo?"

"Ah..?" Zero was a little shocked. _Did I say anything strange earlier?_ He thought.

"No, that's not the question." Hibari shook his head and slowly stood up. He grabbed Zero at the shoulder with great force, pulling Zero out off the bed.

"Guh..."Zero wince a little in pain. What in the world...?

"Are you, _are you..._" Hibari seemed to hesitate, his hands applied more force on Zero's should, making a small cracking noise. "Are you... _Sawada Tsunayoshi_?"

And that was when Zero realise what he just said before he fully woke up. _Oops_, Zero thought silently, _huge mistake. Now, how am I going to deal with this? _He thought staring at Hibari's serious eyes.

* * *

><p>'BONG'! Reborn shot open the door of the Salvo HQ with his high power revolver. Byakuran and Edda kicked open the door. With a single look, Reborn ordered all people present, including the six guardians, to get inside the building.<p>

"Rob it, destroy everything, I don't even care." He said slowly. "If you found anything relating to Vongola Decimo, give it to me immediately and you will be rewarded $1,0000,0000 at the spot!"

Edda's already ghastly grin grew even more frightening.


	14. False Truth

Hello, mina-sama, this is Kunagisa. It has been a long time since I last wrote such a long comment. Now, let's get straight to the point. Due to the complexity of the plot (a friend stared at me for how long I dunno after I told her the plot and pinched me really hard in the stomach, then commented 'you are insane') plus me telling mina-sama its gonna get more complex, there will be a_**'Q & A' section**_ in the next update. So **please write **_**all**_** of your **_**questions**_** in the **_**review**__**section**_** so Kunagisa can clear stuffs up**.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13: False Truth<strong>

Reborn and the guardians were greeted by Francisco when they stormed into the Salvo Committee's Headquarters. Francisco was standing in front of the only entrance into the main corridor, holding a death-scythe like weapon in his hands. His expression was cold, very similar to Zero V. Salvo's. For the first time, Francisco was not smiling. He was not alone. Beside him, a, _well_, girl in long European court dress was standing holding the same weapon in her hands. However, her expression was not as staid as Francisco's. She looked extremely shy, and her face red due to possibly anger. Her hands was a little shaky, and somehow to Reborn and co., her face resembles Ivan's, _a lot_.

Francisco noticed Vongolas' shift of attention to his partner. His expression relaxed as he swung the death scythe to his left. "Oh, you noticed." Francisco walked towards the girl and put one hand on her shoulder, lifting her chin. "This young lady here is Ivy. She is the younger sister of my dear friend Ivan. She is also, beside that identity, my dear _girlfriend_." Then Francisco kissed Ivy right on the lips, in front of who-knows-how-many

stunned audiences. The face of Ivy turned bright red as she pushed Francisco away with great force.

"Jeez." She whispered, her voice horse but gentle. "Francisco, _c'est suffisant_."

"Alright. Fine." Francisco seemed genially disappointed. But then he went back to that stony expression as he turned his head back at the group of Vongolas. "Vongola, what in the world brought you guys here in fullarms? Enough in amount to bring me, the boss out!" Francisco exclaimed. "And where is Zero-kun? He hadn't return from your headquarters yet! Did you kill him? I thought we were allies..." Francisco, again, sounded disappointed. But this time there was a edge of dangerousity within his voice.

"We are just here to search for something." Edda said with a wicked smile. "You know, _something_."

"What '_something_'?" Francisco said loudly, his expression so exaggerated as if he was preforming on a Broadway show. Ivy pinched him on the arm gently. "Anything that you can name which we would be able to provide you with? A cup of coffee, let's say? And what's the purpose? I thought we are supposed to help each other, not_ turn against_."

"Well, that's true. _Innocent until proven guilty_, right?" Yamamoto said with a grin. Then his eyes turned dead serious. "However, this time, it would be _guilty until proven innocent_. Since after all, it was our intelligence agency that turned against you, and it has to do with the _forbidden_ case."

"'The Forbidden Case'...?" Ivy murmured quietly under her breathe. Then she looked up with her face still red, fingers still fidgeting. "You mean by the case which you guys _supposedly_ killed Vongola Decimo, right?" Her voice was really similar to Ivan's, at least 99% similarity.

"Ha ha..." Yamamoto laughed drily. _Supposedly?_ He thought. "Yeah." Yamamoto stopped laughing and nodded. "We suspect you guys have something to do with it. Since we did not betray Tsu...Vongola Decimo by our own will, but rather provoked by somebody else."

"That's an excuse." Ivy said slowly. Francisco besides her nodded in agreement. "Did you kill Vongola Decimo? Let's say yes. Is that an act of betrayal? Yes. Did you do it with you own will? Yes! Then did you betray Vongola Decimo with your own will? Of course _yes_!" She said, getting a bit excited. "No matter who lead you to the act of betraying Decimo, if you betrayed him, then you are a **traitor**."

Her words were like salt to a newly opened wound. The whole crowd of Vongolas remained silent for a while. It was then Edda and Reborn who broke the ice.

"Anyways..." Edda grinned. "What was our original purpose again?"

"Right." Reborn nodded. "I don't really care about anything at this point. Guilty until proven innocent. Mina, storm this building and search for all evidence! This is an absolute order from the temporary head of the Vongola Family!"

"Nah, nah." Francisco shook his head gently. Holding up the death scythe, he and Ivy blocked the main entrance. "That is if you can get pass us first."

"Also." Ivy added with deep doubts. "By Zero-sama's orders. If you guys broke anything or caused any damage, you have to pay us back **ten** times the original value. Please keep that in mind while searching our HQ."

* * *

><p>"Ah..." Zero was speechless for a second. "That's a good question. Am I the late Vongola Decimo-sama?" He scratched his face nervously. "The answer would be...<em>no<em>."

"'_No_'?" Hibari was not satisfied. "Yet you said something only Sawada Tsunayoshi would have said during your sleep. Explain that." His hands still hadn't let go of Zero's shoulders. Sighing, Zero decided to hold Hibari's wrists. That made Hibari's expression turned weird.

"Maybe the identity of my last life was Vongola Decimo-sama or something." Zero said the truth as if it was a small joke. He didn't enjoy lying, especially when the person he's lying to can immediately tell whether he was lying or not. "Why did the guardians-sama betray Vongola Decimo-sama anyways?" Zero tried to lead the conversation towards other directions. "Vongola Decimo was a nice man, I heard."

"Ah..." Hibari let out a short sigh. "Who knows." He was not a particularly talkative person. When the conversations are shifted to sensitive topics such as the death of Vongola Decimo, Hibari usually remains silent. However, today, that would not be the case.

"'_Who knows_'!" Zero couldn't control his voice. For once, Hibari's careless attitude angered him greatly. On this subject, Zero knew exactly what happened that day so many years ago (Kunagisa: remember, Zero lived two lives already). He could not believe that Hibari could be so care free even on this subject. "You guys...well...killed him, and you said 'who knows'? Hibari Kyouya-sama, are you in your right mind?"

Hibari stared at Zero for a second, his mouth half opened. Zero's gaze was so strong and determined that Hibari eventually turned away his head. "Ku." He let out a short laugh. "Oh well, you are right." Standing up from the bed, Hibari walked toward the chair where he was sitting. A hint of hopelessness and regret flashed through his eyes as a bitter smile rose. Then he collapsed onto it. Bringing his head to his knees, Zero heard a quiet whimper, as if there was a lonely yet loyal dog mourning over his owner's death.

Bitterly, Zero started to remember that dreadful day. The day when everything changed.

* * *

><p><em> "Vongola Decimo-sama, I am very surprised." Edda Dogth said munching on a cookie. "You didn't even undergo a background check on me, yet you let me remained here! How kind but naive of you! What if I am an enemy?"<em>

_ Tsuna laughed in his chair. Dropping his pen back into the drawer, he stood up and walked towards Edda. On the way there, he grabbed himself a cookie, too. "Who said that I did not do a background check on you? Anyone, I mean it, anyone who wants to get near me will undergo a secretive background check. I am the 'great' Mafia Boss after all." Tsuna said with a hint of disappointment. _

_ "Then what did you find?" Edda asked curiously, his bony fingers tapping on the arm of the chair._

_ "Edda Dogth, the son of a postman and a public school teacher from Tacoma, Washington in the United States of America. Parents divorced at the age of nineteen. At that time, you moved to France and attended a college in Northern France. I believe it was at the college that you met your first love, a girl with the name of Sheila Carducci. She ditched you when you graduated from the college and moved to Paris. That was around six years ago." Tsuna took a deep breathe and continued, he didn't bother looking at Edda. But if he did, he surely could noticed the smile creeping up Edda's face. "Then you disappeared from our sight for around one and a half year. It was reported that somebody who resembles you was sighted at a Paris Subway station during that time, but we could not confirm the accountability for that. Then you reappeared, this time at Britain. The next time your appearance was recorded in my documents was a few months ago when you jumped into my office from the opened window."_

_ "Awesome!" Edda was quite thrilled. "You remembered to check about me! You haven't lost your mind yet, huh." He said as if he was belittling Tsuna. "Now then, do you remember the decision I warned you that you will make one day?"_

_ "Yes." Tsuna said slowly. "'If the Salvos lost, I die. If they won, all of your guardians will be killed, also your fellow comrades. Or you have the choice of only you yourself dying while all others live.' Your exact words, if I am right." Why now? I checked about the Salvos, the only threat they post to us are their mysteries. I do not see any threat at all."_

_ "Well, you will see the threat now." Edda said with a huge grin, he tilted his head towards the window. Tsuna suddenly felt a visceral fear. He quickly ran to the window and looked outside. There he saw a huge fog in the middle of the garden._

_[At the same time, down in the garden]_

_ "Who are you? Why did you call us here?" Gokudera stared at the man in black (kunagisa: huh...) cloak. A few minutes ago, he heard Tsuna calling him to the garden in his brain, thus he rushed here. Only to see all the other guardians here staring at each other in confusion and the man._

_ "Well, for a reason, of course." The man said. His voice terribly familiar, somehow similar to the voice they constantly hear from within Tsuna's office. "I can only say, to tell you something you are not expecting, but is the truth."_

_ "What?" Yamamoto said with a slight grin, but he clearly knew the man in front of him was dangerous. His skills told him that this man is a mist flame wielder. But is was also possible that he could use other flames. "What so-called 'truth' will you reveal to us today? In such a fashion." His hand motioned at the fog._

_ "A truth about your boss of course, if it had to be this secretive." The man seemed to look up for a second at Tsuna's office. "About the other side of him that you are not all that aware of. His cruelty when killing, his mercilessness when dealing with people other than you, and how cold-blooded he can be." Before the guardians could respond, the man waved his hand and created a mist screen right there. A clip started playing. It was Tsuna, in a 'cleaning' mission apparently unknown to the guardians. _

'Talk.' Tsuna said coldly, a gun pointed straight to a wounded man's head. The background was not very clear, but it was night time. And this was happening in a ruins on fire. When the man did not respond, Tsuna stepped hard onto the man's broken leg. 'Do you want to die painfully or peacefully? Talk!' He then twisted the man's arm so hard that the half-dead man screamed higher than a young girl in awe.

'I...I...please forgive me, Decimo-sama...I did not intend to do that...' The man murmured under his breathe. He was shivering in both cold and pain.

'I know that' Tsuna said slowly. 'But you already did it, so no forgiveness. Information please.' He said as he applied more force on the man's leg. 'Who ordered you to do this.'

'It...it was...it was Ayden.' The dying man whispered.

'Thanks.' Tsuna fired his gun. The man's head was instantly blown up, blood spilled onto Tsuna's face. Tsuna wiped them away with his head carelessly. He stepped over the man's body without an extra look.

'Kill all survivors.' Tsuna ordered his follower. 'Make sure no one knows of this cleansing action.' Then he disappeared behind the flames.

_ The man in black cloak showed the guardians more of these clips, and then finally, the final step of his 'shock and awe', a clip of Tsuna in his office._

'I will send them to all parts of the world.' Tsuna said to himself as he looked at a file. 'They should not stay beside me.'

'Gokudera's too loud and annoying, Yamamoto, well, who knows what he's thinking; Mukuro is just creepy, so is Chrome; as for Lambo and Sasagawa, plain annoying; Hibari, yeah, he's no where to be seen again. They should not stay beside me for now, their shorts will cause me problems.' Then with a quick signature, Tsuna signed another document.

'May be I'll take this chance to marry Kyoko, too."

_ The man looked at the shocked guardians in satisfaction. He looked up at Tsuna's office again. At the same time, Sasagawa let out a huge cry of anger, followed by cold laughs from others. They clearly were not happy. Together, they headed towards Tsuna's office. They did not notice that the fog followed them, too. _

_[In Tsuna's office]_

_ "Ah." Edda said as he looked at the fog. Tsuna clearly heard Sasagawa's cry and other's laugh, but he did not see the clips. "I see, they are revolting against you, Vongola. The Salvos won, they attacked you with within. So choose now. They will find a way to kill all your guardians now, by that mist guy who created that fog out there, but keep you alive. When people's angered, they are easier to attack. Now you have to make the decision._

_ Tsuna stared outside blankly. He didn't know what happened, but he knew the result. Without further considerations, he turned his head and looked Edda in the eye. "I'll die, they can live."_

_ "Sure?" Edda grinned as he took out a bottle of white wine._

_ "Sure." Tsuna nodded. _

_ "Great." Edda poured some white wine into a cup nearby, and then handed it to Tsuna. "Now, please drink this and die peacefully, I'll save your guardians." _

_ "Please." Tsuna looked at Edda with determination and drank the wine in one breathe. As soon as it entered his mouth, he felt pain from his lung. After he swallowed all, he could feel blood gushing up his mouth. He spitted out some, but it continued to come out._

_ "Now, this is the interesting part." Edda said ghastly. He waved his hand slowly, and Tsuna disappeared. One second later, he reappeared in front of furious Sasagawa and the angry guardians. The blood from his mouth made his lips red, thus more evil-looking._

_ "You dare show your face in front of me now, Sawada!" Sasagawa yelled. And the rest that happened is known to everyone here._

* * *

><p>Edda walked around the Salvo headquarters slowly. He gently opened the door of Zero's room. it was extremely tidy. Edda knew Vongola will find nothing unless he do something. When nobody was around, he sneaked a paper in front of Zero's bedroom door. Then he quickly ran outside.<p>

One hour later, a loud cry came from within Zero's room. A young man rushed outside holding a piece of parchment paper in his hand. He basically jumped at Reborn. "Found it!" He cried. "Found it!"

Reborn read what was written in the paper, and his face paled. "Planning an attack on us while faking to help us after killing Tsuna? You dare, Zero Salvo, you dare." Reborn stuffed the paper into his pocket and shouted at the shock Ivy and Francisco. "Vongola now declares war on the Salvo! The fight will be next week, in the woods north of Vongola south of Salvo! Prepare to die!"


	15. I Want to Stop Time

**Sorry for the late update, Kunagisa was busy preparing for SAT 1, SAT 2, and AP. Please forgive...Yeah's it's not the test time. But when taking courses in universities...you know. The question section will be at the end.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14: I Want to Stop Time<strong>

"What did you find?" Ivy exclaimed. _What in the world can they find? Nothing! The only possible item Vongola may use against the Salvos, the script, was hidden in...__**well**__..._Ivy was quite embarrassed to think of that place. _Inside my __bra__, what was Francisco thinking when he promoted that idea? _

Reborn sneered with contempt. "You would like to see it?" He said apathetically. Before Ivy could answer, he continued on. "Sure, I will show it to you. Stop trying to pretend that you know nothing, I hate factitious people." Reborn took out the crumbled paper and handed it to Yamamoto who read the contents out aloud in dire exasperation.

_Salvo, F. Document CNK 398-2CDN_

_Reminder to all members of the salvo family: attack on V. is soon, locations and personnels has been set. Goal is ambush. Be on guard in case missions fails._

_2-/7/27 TS_

"I didn't write that!" Francisco disclaimed in bewilderment. The astonishment was crushing, his body was shaking in extreme trepidation. _I just screwed up Zero-sama's work,_ he mumbled inside his mind. _Zero-sama's __whole__ life's work! His __last__ wish! _Trembling, Francisco walked forward towards Yamamoto with the scythe still in his hand. He tried to reach for the document, yet before his finger could touch the paper Rokudo Mukuro's weapon was already on his neck ready to strike.

"Move one millimetre, my dear boy," Mukuro was weary but filled with wrath. "And you will say good bye to this pretty face." Ivy jumped and rushed to help, however Francisco stopped her with his hand. I am fine, Francisco mouthed at her. Ivy stumbled on the ground and shut her eyes, but her painful expression betrayed her panic. She gritted her teeth and let one sentence slide out her mouth. "Vongola, see you two days later. Battle in the forest fifty kilometers east of Nami High."

Reborn smiled and nodded. "Nami High? What a point to plot on the map. Anyways, fine. Hence, see you two in the afternoon." His expression suddenly turned capricious as he saw Mukuro lifting Francisco's chin gently. "You say, should I punish him for lying? Edda-san, what do you think?"

"Sure." Edda sneered as if he was annoyed. "Why not?" Mukuro then quickly slashed his weapon towards Francisco's left hand at lightning's speed. Francisco quickly shut his eyes and gritted his teeth for pain. _Huh_, he thought mockingly, _I can't play the piano for __**you**__ anymore, sorry, ne._ Then the expected sound of a sharp blade piercing through flesh. Francisco did not feel any pain. He tried lifting his left hand and realised in surprise that it was still there, unharmed. _But what was that sound?_ He wondered as he opened his eyelid.

'Drip' 'Drip' 'Drip' Silence filled the hall, only the echo of blood dropping onto the ground was there. Mukuro raised his eyebrows and sighed, his expression suddenly very gentle and somehow amiable. Edda rolled his eyeballs as if it was within his expectations. Howevers, that was clearly not what Francisco thought.

"Ah...ah...ah..._your_..." Francisco's knees dropped onto the ground. His hands reached forward for Ivy's arm, but it wasn't there anymore. Before he could touch it, the arm left its owner and fell onto the ground. The deep cut near her chest was now also visible - Mukuro slashed so hard that the blade cut through her arm and even harmed her body. His eyes suddenly turned blank. Slowly, Francisco looked up at Ivy. Ivy was sweating hard, but she didn't wince nor say anything else. She gave Francisco an encouraging smile and stared back at Reborn.

"Is this good enough?" She questioned weakly. Before Reborn could answer, she passed out and fell into Francisco's arms.

"Iv...Iv..."Francisco murmured blankly. Then as if he just regained his soul, Francisco shouted into the ceiling "Ivan! Why, Ivan! Ivan, wake up!" He shook 'Ivy''s body gently. "Ivan...Ivan...I will heal you, you are too fragile to get hurt...Ivan..."

"Ivan?" Gokudera stared back at Yamamoto who was also befuddled. "Where's Ivan? I thought there's only two peopler here! Why is that trash calling the girl 'Ivan'? He must have gone mad." A little pity sneaked into his voice. Beside him, Sasagawa gave a out a loud sigh. To him, it was more obvious. He though something was wrong with that girl's voice from the very beginning, so this is the stupid reason.

"Admirable courage." Mukuro shook his head, totally forgetting that he was the cause of Ivan getting badly hurt. "If he can work for us, that will be a great advantage." (Kunagisa-chan: hey Rokudo-san, that's not the point here!)

Edda stared at the two people now all drenched in blood. "Well, that boy will die soon if the Salvo boss remains in shock like that. That was expected, though." He statement attracted gazes from all area. Letting out a laugh, Edda started his explanation as if he was an old man of sagacity. "These two were lovers in their last life. The husband, now called Francisco, was a prince-to-be-king while the wife, Ivan, was a royalty of an antagonistic country. They both died young; the prince, in order to protect his lover's life and reputation, was killed by the father of the girl on battlefield where his body was teared apart by the wild animals; the girl, not aware of the news, waited for the prince for two more years. Assuming he does not love her anymore, the girl committed suicide."

Silence. Only the echo of Francisco's cries were heard. "Well, that explains it. Visceral actions." Yamamoto shrugged, his eyes betrayed the fact that he was moved by the story of his enemy. "How did you know, though?"

"That's a secret." Edda smiled. "I swear to god that this is true, though. I also know that before their last life started, they were brothers once. Their lives were ended that time by their very own mother."

Reborn tilted his head to see Ivan and Francisco, only discovering that they were already gone. "Huh." He murmured. "I wish they are alright." He said to himself. Then he turned around and walked out the Salvo base. The rest of the Vongola followed in this dreaded silence.

Edda was the last to leave. Before he closed the door behind him, he gazed back at the pool of blood. He had already taken a small sample of Ivan's blood when everyone was not noticing. It might be useful to him later on. Grinning, Edda murmured something into the air, straight at the surveillance camera. Whether there's somebody behind it was not necessary, as long as someone sees it at some point of time...

"I will be **back**."

* * *

><p>Zero V. Salvo basically flew back to the Salvo base. When he entered the main hall, he found it covered with footprints of dusts. These footprints formed a circle, and in the middle of the circle was a small pool of blood and a piece of laced fabric. Zero twisted his eyebrows and kneeled down in front of the pool of blood. He dipped his finger in the blood quickly and stared at the colour. He put it under his nose and tried to identify it. His face turned ashen as soon as he realised that this blood belongs Ivan. He stared at the amount and knew Ivan must be in trouble. He stood up and quickly staggered upstairs to Ivan's room.<p>

The room was empty. Zero suddenly panicked. He calmed himself and ran toward Francesco's room. Nobody either. Zero was dubious Francisco and Ivan will do anything dangerous. But with Ivan hurt for reasons unknown to him... He quickly pushed open his own door. Then his expression froze.

"Hey, long time no see." a voice said mockingly. "Well, that's not true. I see you every second even when you don't want me to see you, right, Zero-chan?"

"You!" Zero couldn't say anything else. "How do you plan to torture me, you!"

"Well, you and I had a, well, exchange of commodities." The voice continued. "I just kinda want to have fun with this process you know. I don't have the chance to play this game very often."

"Where's Ivan and Franc! Did you take him." It was not a question, the sentence ended with a comma. It was a statement. "Give them back! Ivan's hurt!"

"Not just hurt, badly hurt." The voice sneered. "Lost an arm, huh. I will treat him alright. As for Franc, he was a little stubborn."

"Why are you doing this?" Zero screamed. He felt completely wrenched. "It was fair trade! It says so on the Script! You will get everything, absolutely **everything**, from me within the next three days! Why are you torturing me **now**?!"

"For fun." The voice said lightly. "You are my toy, forever."

Then the voice disappeared, a scroll fell from the ceiling: it was the Script. Zero sniffed his nose slightly and picked up the script. The opened it gently and glanced at the last few rows. He closed his eyes and faced the ceiling. The scroll dropped from his hands and rolled away. His red eye was hurting. He will die in two days. It was decided millenniums earlier by himself and Death. He was reborn to seek revenge, to kill the people who distrusted and betrayed him. During this process, he was lost. The original purpose was gone. He found his original purpose absurd and was compunctious for that thought. He met knew people whom he could trust, whom he could call friends, even relatives. He thought his heart was already as hard as stone, as cold as ice. But just 48 hours before his death, he realised that his heart was beating so vigourly that he hates to leave this world. No, it not really beating, he knew that. But it was this sense of belong. He belongs, forever, and always. He belongs to the people who cares for him, no matter now or in the past.

"Jeez." Zero whispered as tears trickled down his cheek. "Now? Why now!" He mopped away the tears roughly with his sleeve and walked toward the wardrobe. I should focus! Battle in two days!_ Though pointless, this is a battle that I __**must**__ win! So I can have an escuse to...escuse to... _Zero opened the wardrobe and took several things out. He put on his suites and another silver eye patch. He took out a sword and put it on the ground. Zero tried the eight attributes' fire and played them around. He didn't tell anyone, even Death, how he created this new attribute. It was easy, very easy actually. When the sky attributes darkens and drops into extreme desperation, his fire will turn to black. The black fire is ten times stronger than the sky attribute flame. But it is only useful towards a certain group of people.

Zero stared at himself in the mirror with the black flame on his head. Suddenly, he collapsed. He hid his head into his knees. For a second, you may be able to hear a whimper, a whimper filled with regret.

* * *

><p>"Where are we!" Francisco exclaimed. "What are you planning to do to us! Hey you there! <em>Edda Dogth!<em>" He hugged Ivan tightly in his arms. Though he had stopped bleeding, Ivan was still asleep and quite sick.

"Nothing." Edda smiled as he took out a heavy steel chain. Before Francisco could react, Edda tied him up tightly and sealed his energy away. "I just have to make sure Zero-kun lose. Then I can let you go. But that will be two days later, right? Before that happens, I need to have some fun with you guys." Edda let out a sinister laugh.

"Now, now." Edda lifted one bucket out boiling water and held it right above Ivan's head. "Francisco Salvo-san, to make sure your little, uh, friend's situation doesn't get worse, please tell me more about Zero-chan's stories when he was still in France back in history. You know what I mean."

* * *

><p>Byakuran stared at the group of guardians. "Two days later in a forest?" He said slowly. "Two days later? Isn't that the day that Tsuna officially inherited the Vongola?" A small suspicion raised from Byakuran's mind. Albeit he read Irie's report, he did not think it was all truth. Hence Byakuran came up with his own assumption after he learnt more about the Salvo and, for some reasons, Zero's face and his habits. He dare not say it, but he was certain one of them is close to truth. It was a wild guess.<p>

"Where's Edda Dogth?" Byakuran asked as if it was just another question.

"He went to that mall for woman." Gokudera said as if it was normal. _Old guy to the lady's mall, that's more anormal! _Byakuran thought.

"Is that so?" Byakuran grinned in delight. "I need to buy a gift for my girlfriend, so I will go there too! See ya guys at dinner!" Then he rushed out without another word.

"Girlfriend?!" Mukuro said in astonishment. "When did he get a girlfriend?"

_**~Time will not stop for you, nor can you stop for time.~**_

* * *

><p><strong>Questions and Answers (SPOILER if you hadn't read this chapter yet):<strong>

_**1. Who is Zero? Is Tsuna still alive?**_

A: Who is Zero? My answer can only be that Zero is Zero. He has the soul of Tsuna, the memory of Tsuna. But technically, he is not 100% Tsuna. Thus in a way, Tsuna is still alive.

**_2. What is the existance of Edda?_**

A: Do you have an idea now after reading this chapter? Kunagisa gave out several hints, they are hidden well though. I will tell my dear friends you in the next chapter or two. And no, he is not part of the Salvo.

_**3. Will Zero return to Tsuna again? Why are the Guardians so weak?**_

A: The first part of this question will be revealed later on. Of course, have your idea first. 33.3% that you are right (why 33.3?). As for the weak guardians against the mist user, remember who we are dealing with: Edda. Hint: who actually is Edda?

**_4. Why would Tsuna let him in the first place without consulting the rest of the guardian? And won't they have enough trust in him to not believe that? Why is reborn of weak here and is there any chance for a happy ending?_**

A: Wow! Three questions! Let's go slowly. First of all, Tsuna had the right to beleive that he was the strongest in the world when it comes to fighting: he didn't consider Edda a threat. Also, Tsuna was still naive, or he is not Tsuna. Second question: trust is an interesting topic. The inspiriation for this story is a personal incident which ended in a highly prolific way. Trust can be easily reversed as long as you have a little but of doubt in your heart. A little is enough, just a little. As for happy ending, Kunagisa is thinking that over and over and over. I don't know yet. But there's a chance. The ending is more likely to be mixed. Expect to feel sad, though.

_**5. Does Edda know Tsuna's tru identity?**_

A: Do you know that now after reading this chapter? YES! Edda knows!


	16. We Will Rock You

**Chapter 16: We Will Rock You**

Byakuran's knowledge of Namimori's downtown shopping area surprised both Gokudera and Yamamoto greatly. Though Byakuran did not want any accomplices, Reborn forced those two onto him so that he wouldn't do anything 'absurd and troublesome'. Byakuran danced inside a forest of silk dresses carelessly as his fingertips touched the edge of each dress. _Where the hell is Edda Dogth? _Byakuran wondered while holding up a white dress, _If he's not here nor in the mall I visited before, where is he? Why was he lying?_ Several questions appeared within his mind. Though Byakuran was suspicious of his actions every since the beginning, he had no evidence to hold against him. Byakuran, though always grinning, was utterly frustrated. His intuition told him something was up between Edda and Zero, but he could comprehend neither of these two's actions, hence he could only wait for one of them to show his flaw.

Byakuran suddenly knelt down and hid under a long black dress. Joyous, he saw Gokudera and Yamamoto angrily shouting his name and trying to look for him. He could see that they were attracting girls. Within seconds, the two 'accomplices' were surround by girls staring at their somewhat handsome face. With a sarcastic sneer, Byakuran walked away from the crowd and headed towards the next mall. He did not know what to expect there. Screaming servicewoman or not, if Edda is not present there, he would go off to somewhere else. A place that nobody would ever thought Byakuran will visit on his own will.

* * *

><p>Zero walked around his room anxiously, his heart beating quicker than a mouse's. Of course, it was not due to nervousness for the battle two days later, it was due to worries for his, uh, <em>friends<em>? Can he call them that? Does he have the right to call them that? Those he didn't know. But he was quite sure without them, he wouldn't have made it till today. Zero never thought he still had the gut to use that word. _Friends, eh?_ Zero shook his head gently. That should not be his worry right now. There's more urgent problems to solve.

Zero did know Edda was the person who captured Francisco and tortured Ivan. But he did not know the location where these two were kept, nor did he know where was Edda at the moment. Zero was quite sure he's not with the Vongolas at the moment. _Where would Edda go? _He circled, _Where, in this world, is special to him? What is his true personality if he has one? Where would he be the most fragile?_

Then something rang in his mind. _Checkmate_. The very first few sentences Edda said to him consisted of this word. _Checkmate_. Edda mentioned that all this was a game to resolve his boredom. _Checkmate_. This is a _game_ that he, Zero, is destined to lose. _Checkmate_. This is a man who was superior in Chess than him and had called life boring. _Checkmate, checkmate, __**checkmate**__...This is the word that Edda probably treasures the most. But why? That is the key. __**Why**__? Did something that happened before influenced Edda. Yes, he is not human and he had lived for milleniums. What will influence him to say 'Checkmate'? Why did he chose to apply this word on __me__!_

Zero stopped for a second._ Me, yeah, why out of everyone, me? There must be somebody more interesting than me in this world! Why was I the person chosen? Do I hold something special to Edda, to __**Death**_? Zero jumped on the spot at that thought and ran towards the bookshelf. Stumbling, he pulled an archaic book out. Quickly flipping the pages, Zero kept murmured one phrase in his mouth, his eyes were filled with confidence. _This must be it!_ He thought,_ This must be the truth!_ When his fingers slowed down, Zero quickly glanced at the page he stopped on, he gaze soon landed on one paragraph.

'...Non of the seven feared Death, they embraced it as if meeting a good friend. To them, Death was another part of a natural cycle all experiences, it was another unavoidable component of life. It was no different than birth. Their rivals, thus, would not experience joy by detecting their fears of death...'

Zero collapsed onto the ground. "This is it." He whispered. The book he just read was a gift from the Ninth which was given to him by the Eighth. Zero know the book is more than 150 years old, so the Eighth must have gotten it from the Seventh and so on. It was the story of seven friends who fought for justice around the world. In a sense, it was a fairy tail, a children's story. Yet the events in the book resembled the history of Vongola. It was no ordinary novel, it was more than that. It was a story of Vongola challenging the world, and in this instance, challenging Death.

Now Zero could imagine why Edda chose him. It was probably a revenge. But if that is the truth and Edda's weakness is his defeat, where would he keep Francisco and Ivan? Zero sighed loudly and sat on the edge of a table. _Ha, train of thoughts went on the diverted track. Now, where was I_?

* * *

><p>Byakuran smiled as he walked towards a small bar. The wall outside was splashed with the now faint sinister red paint, the windows were covered with steel rusted steel bars. The door was close to falling. Byakuran gently pushed open the door and slid inside. The interior was somehow similar to the outside but with brighter shades. As Byakuran sat at a table close to the window, an elderly European man came over and sat right across him.<p>

"Monsieur Blanc." The man said hoarsely in French. "I have accomplished the task."

Byakuran smiled and tilted his head. "Report, then." He grinned callously.

"Nothing could be find about Zero V. Salvo." The man said quickly. "Absolutely nothing in other worlds. No such man existed. Not a coincidence, I would imagine."

Byakuran narrowed his eyes but showed no further expressions. "Is that so?" Byakuran said with a smile. "I see then. Thank you, I have already transmitted money into your account. Goodbye." Then he quickly walked out.

Five minutes later, an explosion happened in Downtown Namimori. The centre was a small bar long since forgotten by most. It was rumoured to be a former Yakuza base. The only body found was of an old man. Identity unknown.

That night, Byakuran did not return to Vongola.

* * *

><p>"Ivan?" Francisco whispered into Ivan's ear. After Edda left, he locked them inside a small cell with some dry grass to sleep on. There was also a tap. Edda did hurt Ivan. Francisco refused to say a word to him, thus Edda burnt Ivan's leg. It was not that bad, but it must have been painful. For some reason, Ivan did not wake up nor wince in pain. He remained unmoving. "Ivan?"<p>

No response came. Francisco could hear Ivan's slow heartbeats. Not a good sign. Looking around, Francisco noticed the tap. He quickly got some cold water and poured over Ivan's burnt wound. He did not know how to treat these injuries, but he thought cold water might help a little, at least.

Francisco took off his shirt and ripped it into chunks. He used some to bandage Ivan's wound and put some under the running tap. Drenching the cloth with icy water, Francisco used the them and gently cleansed Ivan's face. Zero-sama's alone trying to prepare for battle. He thought. We must do something.

Suddenly, he noticed a crack on the floor. From the appearance of this cell, it looked like they were inside the basement of a mansion. There might had been people here before who had escaped! Francisco used all his energy and lifted the tile. Not surprisingly, there was a small tunnel.

Now, here's the choice. Remain here or go through the tunnel? Bring Ivan who's wounded and unconscious with 70% chance of being found or desert Ivan and go alone with 30% chance of being found?

* * *

><p>Gokudera and Yamamoto appeared at the Vongola base the next morning with panda eyes. Yesterday after Byakuran ditched them, the girls dragged them to numerous places and tries to make these two love them. Of course, they were not successful. The two boys somehow managed to escape from the crowd but found themselves somewhere in downtown right outside a bright KTV, not remembering how they got here. They found home, but it was already the next morning. Hibari greeted them at the gate, he was on the phone.<p>

"Ah, that was fun." Yamamoto said in fatigue. "Thanks for waiting, Hibari."

Hibari did not nod, he was still listening to the other side talking on the phone with a blank face. Yamamoto know he would be surprised if Hibari responded, it was the norm. Callous Hibari. He and Gokudera continued to walk forward. But then they stopped. They heard a crashing sound.

Gokudera quickly turned his head and widened his eyes. "Hibari?!" He shouted and ran towards the collapsed man. He patted the man on the shoulder but received no response. That was when he noticed Hibari was trembling, his right hand clutching to the phone as if it was his life source. "Hibari?" He gently shook the man, but Hibari seemed lost. His pupils lost focus and his mouth opened. Yamamoto waved his hand in front of Hibari's face but did not receive any response either. Twisting his eyebrows, Yamamoto reached for Hibari's phone.

The phone showed a conversation that ended ten seconds ago. It was a phone call from the internet. In the 'caller' section, the caller of this call stood out so bluntly against the others.

"'Zero'?" Yamamoto murmured. "Zero Salvo?" The he moved down the list. Five minutes before Zero called, there was another conversation. This time, it was from somebody also unexpected. "Byakuran? Where's he?"

All this was unknown to Hibari. He was in complete shock. The two calls he just received totally flipped his world upside down. The short conversations each less than twenty seconds created such an impact on him that he could not talk anymore.

'Zero's Tsuna-kun, Hibari Kyouya. _Sawada Tsunayoshi is Zero_.'

'Don't trust Edda. Anyway, you will see me _die_ tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Francisco patted the dusts off his tattered clothes. It was a gamble, and he had won. The tunnel dug by whoever was a smooth one which led him five minutes away from a bus stop. He was in Sapporo. But there was a downside to it. He deserted Ivan inside the cell. Even though he prepared some 'bandages' and 'towels' for him and some water, Francisco felt guilty. He left Ivan a note scrambled on the wall saying that he would be back for him. Ivan would understand, he will! Francisco told himself. Slowly, he walked one step closer to the bus stop. He took a piece of blank paper he found at the cell with him incase he needs to write something to Zero-sama. Sitting down on the bench in the bus stop. Francisco turned around and looked at the mansion where he was kept for half a day, where Ivan was still sleeping.<p>

It was a nice house made with red brick. Evidently, no one had been living there for a while since the garden was a mess. But it was a great mansion, he would love to own a house like that.

Francisco turned around and waited for the bus. The next one will come in ten minutes, and he shall wait patiently. Everything had gone according to plan. It was smooth and predicable. Everything will be fin...!

The sound of a bomb. And then dusts. Francisco closed his eyes and felt the dusts with his hand. Brick, pieces of bricks, dry grass...Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked back. It was painful to open eyes in the dusts but he did it anyways. It quickly hit him.

The brick house where he was two minutes ago was now gone. The building was gone, the garden was gone, the ground was now flat.

_Ivan's gone_. **Gone**.

Edda glanced at his watch and grinned. Two gone now. One more to go.

Here I come to collect the debt, Zero!

_No, Sawada Tsunayoshi!_


	17. What We All Regret

I guess many of you noticed that the story is ending. Yes it is, but the ending will be long. It will probably drag a few chapters. So, definitely more than three chapters away from ending. As for the ending, Kunagisa wishes to hear from you guys. **_Please please tell me in the reviews whether you want to see a half/half ending (more 20% 80%) or a completely sad ending._** Please review! Merci~

Also how do you guys like the cover? Closest possible to Zero. I might want to put up a pencil drawing of Francisco and Ivan later.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 15: What We All Regret<strong>

Hibari Kyouya, Vongola's _unbeatable_ Cloud Guardian, was send to the hospital by Gokudera and Yamamoto the afternoon before the battle with the Salvos in an urgent hurry. Reborn was not told, nor were the other Guardians told. The people who were informed, surprisingly, were Byakuran and _maybe_, Zero. Byakuran picked up the phone, but Zero did not. Hence Yamamoto left a message in the Zero's voicemail. Since these two weirdos were the last two who had contact with Hibari before his mind went berserk, Yamamoto made the assumption that these two had something to do with this spontaneous situation.

Byakuran picked up the phone only after one ring. Before he called, Yamamoto thought of everything but Byakuran's actual reaction to the news. He imagined Byakuran laughing, screaming, joking, or just remain silent and put down the phone. But not this, never ever this. Thus when he received the reaction, Yamamoto himself did not know how to respond to it.

Byakuran cried. He cried in wistfulness. **And** he cried in happiness.

"*_Sniff_*You **knew**..." Byakuran muttered on the phone with a running nose. "So you knew...Tsu-chan called you later, right? He did called me...Ha, at least somebody's like me now, dueling with reality..."

"'_Tsu-chan_'?" Yamamoto was alarmed. "What did you _just_ say? Byakuran!" He demanded. "'_Tsu-chan called you later_'?!"

"Forget that." Byakuran suddenly stopped 'mourning'. His voice, this time, was light and joyous, contradicting with his previous mood. "I mis-spoke. Tell Hibari I wish him well." Then he hung up the phone, leaving Yamamoto completely dumbfounded in the beeping noise.

Gokudera moved forward and patted Yamamoto on the shoulder. "The doctor said he's just in shock. He can stay here for two days and should be well by then. He's _Hibari_ after all. But I guess he can't go to tomorrow's battle, then." He sighed gently, his voice deep. "I guess we should go back now, Reborn and Sasagawa must be worried."

Yamamoto did not respond. His finger pressed the home key of his phone gently, eradicating the echoing beeping voice both on the phone and in his mind. Sliding the phone into his chest pocket, Yamamoto gave Gokudera a quick hug.

"Hey, hey, bastard, what in the world do you think you are doing..." Gokudera's cursing voice was quickly muffled by Yamamoto's coat. After a few seconds of silence, Yamamoto mutter into Gokudera's ear.

"You know, though our lives' stories are absurd, they are indeed precious." Yamamoto patted Gokudera slightly on the back. "Life itself, then, is the most fragile of all."

Gokudera pushed Yamamoto away slowly, as if absorbing what Yamamoto just said. "Why now?" He whispered silently. "Why say this now?"

"Nothing." Yamamoto gave out a smile, as if he was already back to his normal self. "Just pondering what might really happen tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Francisco was lost in Sapporo. Not physically, though.<p>

"I...killed...Ivan..." Francisco muttered in French, totally ignoring the gazes of the other pedestrians. "I...killed...Ivan...I killed...killed...killed..."He stumbled on the word and could not proceed. His eyes were blank, and he could see nothing but the debris of the brick house, smell nothing but sickening scent of dusts, fell nothing but the piercing pain of brick and wood chunks pressing into his feet, hear nothing but Ivan's gentle laugh.

Francisco went onto the crosswalk. Of course, he was unaware of the red light. Francisco walked forward, his mouth still stumbling on the word 'killed'. He did not hear the honk from the white Maserati, nor did he hear the screeching sound of the car's sudden brake.

And there was some pain. Francisco felt himself in the air, but he didn't bother to think why. "I..killed...killed...Ivan..." He continued to mutter. Then there was the impact. Francisco knew blood was zooming out off his body, but he did not care. He lied there. Eventually, he closed his eyes. _Ivan, I am sorry._ He thought. _I will die now to see you, then._ Francisco grinned slightly and finally passed out. This might be the last time he closes his eyes.

A man in rugged white jeans stepped out off the Maserati. It was an overly handsome young man. For some reason, his hair was white, and he had tattoos on his cheek. The young man walked quietly to the front of his car and wiped the blood away with his sleeve. Then he bent down and stared at Francisco's face. His face was first surprised, then there was an obvious joy. His red and teary eyes turned from extreme cold to somewhat heartwarming.

"Huh, Franc Salvo, why are you here..." Byakuran tilted his head. Without more words, he picked Francisco up and threw him into his Maserati. "You can't die now, I need your help."

* * *

><p>"Edda-san." Reborn said slowly. "Any advices for tomorrow's battle since you are so informed about the Salvo's interior weakness?"<p>

Edda Dogth laughed loudly. "Well, there's nothing to worry about!" He spoke in a cynical manner. "Only Zero will be there! How will he beat us! How _can_ he beat us? We can just be who we are and I believe we will defeat him like that. "

"Only Zero?" Reborn asked. "Where will be Ivan and Francisco Salvo then?"

"Will Zero let them fight?" Edda joked. "No, no, no...They are his precious comrades, he will not let them go on to a battlefield where they are destined to lose."

"You talk like Zero's the one in charge, not Francisco." Reborn stopped for a second and pondered. "Did you know about that all along, that Francisco was not the true boss, but rather Zero?" A small suspicion raised inside Reborn's heart for the first time. _This man might be a spy._ He thought._ A spy from some other family that want to destroy Vongola at its weakest time._

"Oh." Edda tried to look surprised. However, he was laughing in his heart for this question. He had waited so long for it to arrive. "Well. I just noticed, you see. When Ivan was wounded, he called Zero 'Zero-sama', so did Francisco. If the so-called boss of Salvo called Zero with '-sama', who is the actual boss?"

Looking at Reborn's expression, Edda tried to import another thought into his mind. "Zero was messing with Vongola all along. From the way Vongola Decimo was killed, to how he pretended to be a subordinate, Zero is trying to poke fun at us. He is going to make into Vongola a joke at the tip of the Mafia world's tongue. He murdered Vongola Decimo _solely_ for the purpose of demolishing his boredom, or in other words, **having fun**." Edda sighed in an exaggerated manner. "What a way to kill the famed boss of the Mafia world, putting our family in such an ignominious position!"

To Edda's great joy, Reborn's face darkened. He could see anger flaring in Reborn's eyes. _How fun it is to poke fun at human._ Edda thought. _Manipulating their minds is as easy as taking away their lives, or souls._ Now, Edda was near his final goal. He was exulted by this soon-to-come set ending. To Edda, it was like a common movie, a comedy directed and acted by him. And Zero, the name Edda preferred to call Vongola Decimo, was simply an actor in this movie, not even the protagonist. To Edda, Zero was a _disposable_ _**toy**_, Zero was something to be played with and joked with, a toy to erase his boredom. Vongola Decimo was somebody not to be reverenced by him.

* * *

><p>"Guh!" Francisco woke up in great pain. He did not open his eyes, he didn't want to know what Hell looks like. <em>Ivan must be in heaven<em>. He thought, _And I must be in Hell._ But of course, his imagination was soon destroyed by a fuzzy blurb of white. How very funny, that blurb gave Francisco a shivering feeling.

"Good night, Franc-chan!" He heard a sharp voice. _Very_ nostalgic. "How are you doing today?" Francisco refused to open his eyes. _Just some little devil, go away go away. _His wish, however, was once again ignored by his God.

Piercing pain came from his right ankle. "Oh freak...!" Francisco jumped from the pain with his eyes wide open. As he looked down at his ankle, he saw a hand. Then he traced up, and saw quite a familiar face. Byakuran Gesso of Vongola. After a short moment of silence, Francisco spoke.

"So Byakuran, you died _too_?" He asked innocently.

Byakuran tried his best to not break Francisco's ankle. Smiling, he looked into Francisco's eyes. "I am NOT dead, nor are you." He said slowly. "My car crashed into you in Sapporo and therefore, I _saved_ you."

Francisco closed his eyes and tried to remember what happened._ Sapporo, Sapporo, why was I there?_ Then everything flooded into his brain. For ten minutes, he sat on the bed in complete tranquillity. He did not go back into shock, nor did he cry. Francisco simply sat there in silence.

"So," Byakuran broke the eyes. From Francisco's expression, he knew something had happened between the time Vongola left the Salvo base and now. To Byakuran, this period of a time of doubt. The truth was revealed to him from Irie's senseless reports and his own deductions. He could now deduct the steps Zero will take in the upcoming days to survive, because Byakuran knew who he truly is. But something quite different seemed to had happen to Francisco. "Franc-chan, what happened?"

Francisco looked out the window and bit his lips. "Edda Dogth of Vongola captured Ivan and me. I escaped and hence killed Ivan." He gave a quick summary of his experience and continued silence.

Byakuran noticed that Francisco was unwilling to say anything else. Slowly, he sat down on the edge of bed and turned Francisco's head to him. "Zero V. Salvo's Sawada Tsunayoshi, right? Sawada's not dead."

Francisco dropped his eyes. If it was one day earlier, he would remain completely silent and deny even under torture. But it was not one day earlier. Ivan's dead. Edda kidnapped them. Piecing together the fragments of stories Zero told them during awkward times, Francisco could see a whole picture. Edda's identity was clear to him now. Zero-sama told him that Zero himself would die tomorrow no matter what, and that this death is for eternity because he would hand his own soul to Death. No rebirth. No 'See you next life'. Zero could not be saved anymore. But his fame could be.

Francisco looked up again, at Byakuran's red eyed. He had be crying badly, and he hadn't been sleeping. Byakuran must be confounded by the truth, he must had remembered the melancholy past. "You cried." Francisco stated quietly.

"Yeah." Byakuran laughed. "I did. We are going to do it again, right? Vongola is going to kill Tsuna again, break his heart again. And what can I do?"

"Tell them the truth." Francisco answered without hesitation. "I will probably commit suicide soon, so I can't do it. You will be the one to tell them the truth."

"Commit suicide? Why?" Byakuran twitched his eyebrows. "You are not that weak, are you? Just because your lover died?"

Francisco looked back out at the moon. It was about eight at night. The battle will be in a little less than a day. "I will tell you the story." He said gently, "The full story, and you will understand why."

So Francisco talked. He told the story as if he was an old man on his deathbed, and Byakuran listened. He was a good listener. He didn't interrupt at any point, even when Francisco's eyes started to turn red, even when Francisco started to tear.

So the night passed. Francisco fell asleep few minutes after he finished the story, leaving Byakuran alone in the daybreak, more awake than any time in his life.

Byakuran stood up. He put Francisco in a comfortable position and changed his bandages. He made two days' food and put them inside a fridge, sticking a note that says Francisco can't die before he comes back.

And then he left. Inside a black cloak, inside a white Maserati. To Namomori. If he can make it there in five hours, he may be able to save Tsuna.

Five hours. The normal travel time is fifteen hours. Five. _Five_.

And he started his car.

* * *

><p>Hibari Kyouya woke up in dawn. He pulled the needle off his hand and walked out off the bed. Putting his hand on the window, Hibari Kyouya smiled. Another day, another world, maybe another life. The reason why Zero called him was clear: Zero wanted to shock him so he wouldn't appear on the battlefield, so Zero would face one less nostalgic face during this to-death fight. Byakuran's aim, of course, was the opposite: he wanted him to stop Vongola from fighting with Zero, so Zero wouldn't have to die again in sadness.<p>

"I don't know..." Hibari whispered. "I don't know...I want to save you, Sawada...but...but can I?"

He was so devoted in his thoughts that he ignored the approaching shadow holding a gun.

And he collapsed.

"The silencer worked well." The shadow smirked to himself. "I love these human inventions. Pretending to be Death, what a nature."

"Sleep, Hibari Kyouya, I won't let you ruin my comedy show."

* * *

><p>Zero stood alone in the garden staring at the rising sun. The sunrise hurt his eyes, but he didn't care. It was the absolute last day of his life, he wanted to treasure every second.<p>

Edda sent him a message two in the morning. Francisco and Ivan had died. He had forced Hibari mad successfully because he questioned his identity. Now, he was truly alone.

**Alone**.


End file.
